


Lynch Lyric

by transtwinyards



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music Store, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Injuries, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 75,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtwinyards/pseuds/transtwinyards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside were instruments as far as his eyes could see. Guitars stood on foam stands, price tags spinning with the air inside, the plastic glare flitting back at Adam like flashes. Violins were on racks, displayed on the walls. There was a magazine stand full of tutorials and chord lessons by the empty counter. There was a drum kit, a grand piano, stacks of keyboards, a harp, chimes. </p><p>The store struck Adam as out of place, and he looked around the strip of dusty, buttery environment to make sure of this. Sham stores selling cheese and souvenir stands selling cheap and breakable things littered the strip, and the looming building of Lynch Lyric seemed too rich, a diamond in the rough.</p><p>-----<br/>An AU where Adam's still trying to get out of his situation and the Lynches own a music store.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Adam peered inside the store that hung guitars in the front like sticks of smoked ham, he acquired piano lessons.

It was a walk away from Adam’s future third job at the trailer factory, and it loomed with a cozy autumnal exterior that looked grand against the dusty streets bathed in the buttery midday sun. The sign hung above in what looked like a recycled piece of grand piano: _Lynch Lyric_. The front said in exquisite cursive: _hand-made instruments from Singer’s Falls!_

It was the kind of store that Adam couldn’t enter because of his poverty. Every time he’d seen it in his weekend of job hunting, it had been something like a reminder. It was what he was working toward, this family-store’s extravagance that no other stores down the strip had a chance on. It looked like what Aglionby felt when Adam had walked through for the entrance exam.

It was intimidating and daunting and beautiful.

He’d seen it a few times now, but today was the day he’d stopped and really _looked_.

Inside were instruments as far as his eyes could see. Guitars stood on foam stands, price tags spinning with the air inside, the plastic glare flitting back at Adam like flashes. Violins were on racks, displayed on the walls. There was a magazine stand full of tutorials and chord lessons by the empty counter. There was a drum kit, a grand piano, stacks of keyboards, a harp, chimes.

The store struck Adam as out of place, and he looked around the strip of dusty, buttery environment to make sure of this. Sham stores selling cheese and souvenir stands selling cheap and breakable things littered the strip, and the looming building of Lynch Lyric seemed too rich, a diamond in the rough.

His reflection caught his eye, just as dusty as his background.

He couldn’t go in.

Someone inside moved.

His attention flitted back into the store as a young man, taller than Adam but looked to be just his age group walked around. He had built shoulders, a shaved head, and a stride that was reassured and deliberate. The walk of an Aglionby boy.

Adam thought, _he could be the boy who went past me at the store_. The boy who’d paid for beer that he was too young for, who drove away in a car that he was too young to drive, that pushed Adam to work harder to get into Aglionby and its partial scholarship in the coming school year. But the possibility seemed ridiculous, illogical.

The boy picked up a guitar from somewhere in the store, worn and blue, glare hitting Adam in the eye. Adam traced the line of the boy’s shoulders, the cheek bones, the sharp turn of his head to better listen to his finger work. His nose was sharp in this angle, and his brows covered the hollows of his eyes.

Adam went in.

Overhead, a bell rung, and the boy stopped mid-pluck, looked up, and then went back to his guitar. The rush of air-conditioning felt too much like adrenaline, and with the temperature lowering, Adam’s heart rate rose.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

He stepped in and took in the scent of wood, the sound of gentle metallic notes being plucked into a song that Adam had heard on the radio earlier in the auto shop. Now inside, Adam saw the golden records lining the wall, belonging to famous musicians in various genres. Farther down the hall of the store, there were various other instruments. A wall dedicated for strings for violins and cellos and guitars, a wall dedicated to racks of displayed woodwind and brass instruments. Ukuleles hung on a rack on the other side of the counter.

Upon a longer look, Adam read the boy’s black work shirt. By the breast bone it had the store logo and _Ronan_ stitched below it.

Adam wondered if he was a Ronan Lynch, or if he was hired help.

The guitar notes stopped abruptly. Ronan looked up, his blue eyes piercing and shocking to Adam. It went well with his sharp features.

He said something.

“Come again?” asked Adam politely.

“I asked if you were looking for anything in particular or just window shopping?” Ronan repeated, voice low but audible, accent obviously Virginian but another twang that said he wasn’t from Henrietta, like the front said. Adam took a deep breath.

“Just looking around, if that’s okay with you.”

Ronan shrugged, and went back to his guitar.

Adam walked towards the piano, wanting to look around just as he’d told Ronan. He didn’t want to seem like he’d lied and just hung around for air-conditioning.

He drew back the lid and ran his fingers over the keys. His attention was drawn on his fingernails, full of grease. He withdrew, scared that grease might have smeared the white keys, but on further inspection, he saw that it was as clean as before he’d touched it.

He played a simple tune, one he’d asked a classmate in fifth grade to teach him. It had sounded pretty when she played it in the music room, and Adam still remembered the keys to it. _Fur Elise_ , his brain supplied, though he only recalled a few keys in.

“You know how to play?”

Adam turned to look at Ronan, who had now put down his guitar to walk toward Adam.

“Not really,” he told Ronan. “I never…” He let it trail off. _Never learned_? _Never had the time_? _Never had a piano_? Ronan didn’t seem to care for the end of the sentence.

He stood next to Adam, and now Adam saw that he really was only a few inches taller. With great nonchalance, he stepped up to the piano and his nimble fingers played the next bit of keys with ease. The leather bands wrapped around his wrists made the anatomy of his hands more obvious, pointing where the pivot of his wrists were. Adam stepped back so that Ronan had full access to the piano, and Ronan gladly took it. His left hand played in, and soon it was as prettier than Adam had remembered it.

“Where’d you learn?” Adam asked, raising his voice a little to be heard over the piano.

Ronan didn’t stop before answering, “Self-taught. Had a lot of free time last spring break, then this spring break. Dad already finished this piano and piled it up in one of our barns. He kept meaning to call the movers so that we could sell it but he kept getting held back.”

Then the keys stopped abruptly, and Ronan turned. His posture suggested ease, and his fingers lingered on the keys. His eyes were alive. “Want me to teach you? I get bored in here a lot.”

Adam sighed, scratching at his elbow, thinking, again, that maybe grease would come off. He checked. Nothing.

“I dunno, I don’t really have the money.”

Ronan slid back the lid, “Oh, the only payment I need would be the company. My mom’s been meaning to get me into teaching for summer vacation, and I really need the experience. C’mon, man. You already have the fingers for playing.”

Adam stared at the knobs of his knuckles, the irregular length of his fingers. “You mean it?”

Ronan grinned, sharp as his eyes. “Yeah, you do. So, what do you say, stranger?”

Adam thought of it.

“I have Wednesdays, Fridays, and weekends off. What time do you need me?” Adam said, after a long pause.

Ronan bounced on the balls of his feet, looking already excited at the thought of teaching Adam. Adam couldn’t help the tug at the corner of his lips. “Anytime you want, man. Though, if you’re coming at like, six, reel it back for Sundays, I have Mass to attend.”

Adam threw out his hand, “It’s a deal.”

Ronan shook it.

“I’m Adam. Adam Parrish.”

“Ronan Lynch, but I bet you already knew that.”

Adam walked out of the store with a grin and a schedule to keep him out of his parents’ double wide for the next few months.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Around the fifth time that Adam came around Lynch Lyric, it was a Wednesday, the last day of school before summer break, and he met the rest of the Lynch family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: mentions of alcohol and abuse that is canon-typical but presented in the frankest way possible

The second time Adam had visited, the day after meeting Ronan, he’d met Aurora Lynch.

She was a giant of a woman, with golden hair and a serene smile, nothing but rounded and soft, and her piano playing was graceful. It’d seem a bit miraculous that Ronan and she were related at first glance, him with his sharp grin and built shoulders, and her with her gentle smile and timid posture, but five minutes into the teaching, it hadn’t seemed too questionable.

Ronan was patient in a way that Adam wasn’t used to.

Ronan asked standard questions ( _if he knew the scales, if he knew any other songs, if he wanted to know more, did he want to know anything in particular_ ), and he answered ( _yes, no, yes, can we do something more modern?_ ), and then they’d begun the lesson. Adam’s fingers were clumsy, but aligning his fingers to the keys was his only problem. After a few hand exercises, Adam had successfully reiterated every new note to _Fur Elise_ that Ronan had taught him.

On his way out, it was dark out but Adam’s father wouldn’t notice when his field of vision was obscured by the bottom of a beer bottle, Aurora had touched Adam’s hands in a way he wasn’t used to and handed him a cardboard cutout of a piano, and a few books full of songs from the eighties that Adam knew from the radio. “Return them when you’ve learned all that you’ve wanted to,” she told him.

Adam thanked her and blinked his tears of gratitude on the bike ride to the dusty part of Henrietta.

* * *

 

The third time around, Adam was late, and he’d met Niall Lynch.

They’d bump into each other on the way to the strip, and Adam had mistaken him for Ronan. He seemed like a carbon copy of his son, or rather, it was the other way around. If it weren’t for the shirt that said _MANAGER_ at the back, Adam would have shouted Ronan’s name.

They shook hands, and Niall, in his distinctly fading and indistinguishable English accent, had complimented his grip. Adam, with his soft and thick Henrietta accent, had thanked him and told him that Ronan was teaching him the piano. At that, Niall had guffawed and said, “Ah, _you’re_ the Adam boy, then.”

“He’s spoken of me?” He blurted out.

“Right. He told me you were polite. I can see that now,” Niall replied, pleased. “Yes, he’s spoken of you. Quite a lo—oh!”

This last exclamation was aimed at Ronan, who had intervened mid-conversation by rushing towards Adam and grabbing him gently by the shoulders, his ears pink with either embarrassment or the sun on his skin. He had rushed out of the store once he’d seen Adam and Niall approaching. “Alright, Adam, slowly walk away from my father and I probably won’t have to erase your memory.”

Adam laughed, and it was drowned out by Niall’s louder laughter.

“The truth shall set you free, Ronan,” his father teased. The way he said _Ronan_ was as if he’d meant to say _liar_ , but in the past two days, Ronan had been nothing but honest to Adam so maybe Niall was being sarcastic.

He walked away from Niall, let himself be ushered into the store.

That day, Ronan asked if he had practiced, and he had admitted, bashful, “I may or may not have smeared your cardboard keyboard thing with grease because I practiced at every possible moment I could get.” When Ronan just blinked at him, he asked, “Is that okay? I can—I’m sorry, the board was probably something sentimental.”

Ronan shook his head and waved him off, “No, no, it’s fine. It’s good, you’re practicing.”

Adam was skeptical, but they’d moved on, and Adam tried a few notes of the Beatles’ _Hey Jude_ and was ferociously pleased that it sounded exactly like he’d imagined while practicing it on the piano.

That day, Ronan taught him how to use both hands while playing, and he found that it was fairly easy. And useful. Multitasking was easier when both hands were doing something different simultaneously, and he thought he could probably use it outside of music too.

On his way out, he paused to see that it was dark out when they finished that day Adam has never cared this little about the time he was consuming, it was kind of refreshing.

Nonchalantly, Ronan offered to oil Adam’s squeaky bike. Adam declined, promised he’d do his exercises and practice, then apologized for being late and _Would you mind if I come late any other time_? Because there was still the risk of Adam’s father and the risk of putting in extra hours for work to earn money to get out of his father's reach.

From inside the store, Niall shouted, “He’ll never be upset with you, boy!”

From next to where Adam stood, Ronan just shook his head fondly, turned to Adam and said, “I’ll be starting lessons up with others in a few days, I don’t mind. If you come in late.”

"Okay."

Adam biked to work with a grin on his face for the third time that week.

* * *

 

The fourth time around, another boy was on the counter, younger than Adam, and blonder. His shirt said _Matthew_ and he looked a bit like Aurora, so Adam said, “Is Ronan here?”

Matthew looked at him, dipped his chin a little, and then smiled wide. Adam was taken aback at how innocent the gesture seemed to look. “You must be Adam.”

Adam snorted at the memory of the words that Niall had spouted just the day before, leaning on the counter, “Don’t tell me. You’ve heard a lot about me too.”

Matthew hummed an agreement, and nodded just to emphasize. It made his curls bounce a little and it looked too childlike of a gesture on someone who seemed only a few years younger than Adam.

“Nothing bad, I hope” said Adam.

“Nope,” Matthew said, popping out the _p_. “He looks forward to a lot of it.”

From behind the counter, Ronan’s voice shouted, “Matty, you better not be embarrassing yourself again!”

Adam grinned at Matthew then said, “Let me handle it,” before shouting to reply, “He’s only really embarrassing you, Ronan!”

There was a silence, then sounds of distress, then sounds of multiple boxes and other things falling at a height before Ronan pushed his way out of the back. His ears were pink at the tips again, and he was slightly out of breath. There was a mark of something linear and square-like on his muscular arms. It seemed he had dropped boxes on his way out to defend himself.

Adam gave Ronan an onceover and a sly smile, “So you’ve talked about me.”

Ronan scowled, his black look overcompensating to cover his obvious blush. “So I have. You’re here early, Parrish.”

So he was.

That day, Adam had finally tried a few other songs, and successfully remade a song he’d heard on the radio by ear. When he’d told Ronan why he’d been so proud of this little thing, Ronan had a moment to look a bit surprised, then proud too.

“You’re a fucking _genius_ , Parrish,” Ronan said, and Adam, though he took it with sarcasm, took the compliment either way.

“A genius that gets taught how to play,” he replied, copping around the keys again, trying to memorize.

That day, they spent around improvising tunes. Ronan started then dared Adam to follow up with something else. Soon enough, they were laughing as the tune went different ways, and then Matthew came out from the back to dance something jaunty and Irish and severely dangerous in their cluttered and closed environment. The laughter and improvisations continued on until Adam had to leave for work and Ronan had to hold Matthew still because he risked hitting someone (mostly Matthew himself) with his high kicks.

When Adam stepped into the living room later that evening, the sky in the trailer park dusty and insistently buttery though it was dusk, Robert Parrish lay drunk on the couch, snoring loudly away into the night. Adam’s mother came up from the kitchen and frowned when she saw her son. Adam’s happiness melted a little bit inside him, the bitter reminder of where he lived and where he came from biting into his mind.

It was so different from the atmosphere inside Lynch Lyric, and Adam hoped he had more things to keep him out of this house.

“Your father expects you to come home sometimes, you know,” his mother whispered to Adam. “Where were you after school today?”

Adam said truthfully, “With my friends.”

He tried not to be mad at his mother for the frown thrown his way after he told her this, but he knew she wouldn’t say anything that would anger Robert Parrish, and he knew that she wouldn’t tell him that he was out with friends instead of back here getting pummeled for existing.

* * *

 

The fifth time around, Adam biked to the store with his school bag on his rusty bike, and spotted a Volvo that was so Aglionby it hurt. Next to it, there was a hell-tinted Camaro that was even more Aglionby and it hurt to look at more than how it felt.

He entered the store after chaining his bike, and there was a silence that held a fight in it. Adam knew it was, because there was a Niall/Ronan-looking boy in an Aglionby uniform, a square-shouldered bespectacled Aglionby boy, and Ronan, and though the square-shouldered boy and Ronan kept giving each other meaningful glances, Ronan and his other brother (because what else would their relationship be) were not looking at each other at all.

Ronan looked up from where he was looking at the Square Shoulders. “Adam.” His voice said, _Wrong timing_.

Adam hesitated. “I could… return later, if it’s okay?”

Ronan shook his head, and then his brother spoke up. “You’re setting a bad image for your _student_ , brother.”

“Whose fault is that then?” Ronan snarled in reply. Adam had no idea what he’d just walked into.

“Certainly not mine.”

“Declan,” Square Shoulders said in a warning tone.

"Stay out of it," Declan barked at Square Shoulders. Ronan scowled.

Ronan's next words were venomous and odd in the way that it all sounded too right and too wrong simultaneously, coming out of Ronan's mouth like this. “Dee, I don’t give a fuck if Adam hears, I give a fuck if I’m going to have to teach him how to play while you’re in here and if you're going to insult my friend. Dad’s not here, okay, so if you’re gonna bitch to him, go run back into your shitty-ass Volvo and drive home to look for him.”

“I’ve _been_ home, okay. And he’s not—“

“Well, then fuck, what do you want? Just go back to DC and try the fuck again some other time. Sometime that isn’t Sunday, because God knows you need to visit your mother more often than for obligation. Just get the fuck out of my store.”

Declan left swiftly after. On the way out, he glared at Adam, and Adam just stared on back.

Square Shoulders sighed. “Must you two always fight whenever he comes home?”

Ronan didn’t reply.

Adam moved further into the store. “Well, that was something,” he remarked.

Ronan snorted humorlessly at that.

Square Shoulders straightened up at the sight of Adam. “I’m sorry you had to meet him like that,” he said politely. “I’m sure Ronan’s yet to introduce him to you. Declan’s usually more docile.” Adam shook his head. He didn’t mind.

“That’s because Ronan’s a dick and won’t talk about his family specifically, like a normal person. It’s always ‘Mom’, ‘Dad’, ‘my brother’, and ‘my cows’,” Adam quipped.

Ronan grinned, pleased as a pit viper, all traces of his black mood thrown out of the window.  “I’m not a dick. You’re mistaking me for him,” Ronan gestured to Square Shoulders, but didn’t deny Adam’s calls on his story-telling mannerisms. In fact, he seemed quite pleased that Adam noticed.

His friend sighed again, looking irritable but tolerant of Ronan’s asshole behavior. On second thought, it actually sounded a bit fond. “I’m Richard Gansey. Please, just call me Gansey.” They shook hands.

“I’m Adam, but I bet you know that already.”

Again, Ronan seemed pleased. Pleased to hear his words in Adam’s voice.

“I do,” Gansey said, and gave Ronan a knowing look that irritated Adam for a reason he couldn’t quite place. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Gansey took a small step back, which, Adam thought, seemed like such a formal gesture to make. Or maybe it was just Gansey. “I should be going then. Ronan seems eager to teach you alone. Ronan, pick your phone up when I call you, okay?”

Ronan waved him off.

That day, they didn’t learn anything. They just talked about their days, talked about Declan, talked about Gansey.

Declan, apparently, had been storming about Virginia for Niall after finding out about Ronan’s inheritance of Lynch Lyric and the Barns. He hadn’t seemed too keen about finding out about that, even though it was clearly none of his business, and he was perfectly fine with taking it out on Ronan though it was Niall’s decision.

Gansey, apparently, had been there to stop a potential brawl from happening. Adam should have been surprised that such violence could have happened inside the Lyric of all places but with the way the Lynch brothers were griping at each other earlier, he couldn't really bring himself to be surprised. Gansey, also, was Ronan's classmate and practically his best friend. They'd gone hiking sometime last spring break, and, together with Gansey's roommate Noah, had done pretty stupid stunts before. Adam wasn't surprised about any of that either.

Adam, to try to contribute to the lightening up of the mood, talked about some classmates of his who played a prank on their homeroom class and somehow lined the whole classroom floor with bubble wrap. Ronan laughed and thought of possibly doing it for the Lyric.

When they got out of the Lyric, Adam had about thirty minutes to bike to his job at the convenience store in the heart of Henrietta. Ronan offered a ride there. Adam had too easily accepted.

Ronan closed down the Lyric for the day and led Adam to the back. Adam tried not to gawk at the BMW M3, but the proud look on Ronan’s face said that he’d gawked anyway.

“It’s my dad’s but he says he likes his motorcycle better,” Ronan told him. Adam couldn't bring himself to be envious of this fact, which was odd and unfamiliar but welcome nonetheless. Together, they hauled Adam’s bike into the back of the BMW and Ronan backed out of the alley before Adam had even closed the passenger side door.

The ride in the BMW was full of comfortable silence and the sounds of the engine purring beneath their feet, and then when they were at the convenience store Adam worked at, Ronan came in with Adam and bought a paper bag full of chips and they ate it and they drank soda ‘til their stomachs couldn’t take it.

Ronan went home around ten, and not once did Gansey call. Or maybe Ronan turned his phone off.

That night, Adam came back to his parents’ double-wide to the same thing that he had the previous night, and he couldn’t help but dread a future that didn’t involve Lynch Lyric, that didn’t involve coming back here happy and sated, that didn’t involve a peaceful night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan doesn't know what crocodile tears mean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> same warnings from last chapter!
> 
> i'll just take this moment to say thank you to all the readers that are waiting for this to update and those readers who let me know in the comments. i cannot stress enough how spontaneous and random this idea meant and your encouragement for me to continue it is extremely relieving.

Adam had lost count how many times he’d gone into Lynch Lyric.

Months passed, and days blurred together into pleasing sessions of music and jokes. In the few weeks that took for Adam to learn the piano, they had long moved onto the guitar. His hands have been calloused and were long in places he deemed odd, but his fingers still burned with the sting of abuse and stretching to reach for the right fret, and hiding aches that were caused by Robert Parrish crushing Adam’s fingers in his vice-like grip.

Multiple times, Ronan had to patch him up, and multiple days, they just hung out inside the store, exchanging stories and laughs and talking about nothing in particular. Sometimes, Gansey and his roommate, Noah, walked in to have fun with them. Other times, Matthew or Niall or Aurora were with them to man the store. Sometimes, Adam wasn’t the only one Ronan was teaching. Other times, Adam helped Ronan teach (Adam was relieved that though he did not let Ronan give any part of the pay for the teaching, Ronan had not asked about it yet and thanked him for it. It was all he truly asked for).

They were peaceful days as buttery as the sunlight baking the asphalt outside.

But it was on Adam’s sixteenth birthday, on a hot July day, a Saturday, that he entered Lynch Lyric freshly bruised from the double-wide.

He didn’t know why he’d expected this simple happiness to last. He guessed he was just surprised that it even lasted months before Robert Parrish gave him a bruise Adam couldn’t hide.

The previous night, Adam had gone home the same time he always did, and Adam’s father punched him silly for all that he could aim at Adam, drunk and shouting about things Adam had nothing to do with.

When Adam walked into Lynch Lyric the day after, a student was in there, someone that Adam had seen from Henrietta’s Farmer Market and the convenience store often enough to know by face and seen from inside Lynch Lyric enough to know by name. She’d introduced herself as Blue Sargent, weeks ago, and Adam knew that she was the daughter of the 300 Fox Way psychics before she’d even been introduced. She certainly looked like a psychic’s daughter, with her eccentric clothing style.

Ronan called her maggot, because she was barely five feet. She was taking ukulele lessons.

“Ooh,” Blue winced upon seeing him. “What happened to your face?”

Adam had miserably hoped she wouldn’t have brought it up but his day wasn’t going too well. “Do you think it makes me look tougher?” he asked self-deprecatingly.

Ronan came out from the back and scowled, his face seemingly refusing to morph into something worried. Adam appreciated it deeply. “I think it makes you look like a loser,” he told Adam.

Matthew followed suit, looking worried, more than his brother, but trying too hard not to, “What’s the other guy look like?” he asked. He had inherited from his brother the skill of not making things awkward, and Adam was relieved he wouldn’t have to lie to someone as sweet as Matthew.

Adam sighed, tired. “Better off than I do.”

Ronan picked up his guitar and handed it to Adam. His sharp gaze refused to land on Adam’s bruised cheek. “Accompany the maggot, will you. I need to get something from the back. If you need help, she has the chords.”

Adam gladly obliged, wanting something to do something with himself other than feel that gnawing ache of pity and shame to have shown up at the Lyric like this, like some pathetic, hurt animal running to a corner whereh is abuser could not reach him.

Playing music wasn’t something he expected to be relaxing and useful at the same time. Often Adam found this relief beneath the engine of some beastly old thing, trying to figure out what’s wrong, finding out and fixing it. Adam had never been known to _make_ anything, only to fix things. Music was too pretty, too beautiful, and Adam was nothing but _a waste of space, sack of shit, look at me when I’m talking to you, I think I need to make you_ understand.  

Until Ronan had taught him, Adam Parrish was never one for creation, only restoration. Fiddling with the guitar in his weak hands, sitting next to Blue, music felt fragile and special as he strummed a chord and listened to the groan of the guitar settled on his lap, and felt vibrations as the strummed strings produced the chord successfully in a way that Adam had yet to decipher.

As he looked over the notes that sat on the bench between him and Blue, he plucked each out clumsily, thought again then started strumming it. He was still unfamiliar with the guitar, mostly because he couldn’t bring home anything to practice with like he had with the keyboard. His fingers stung a little as he slid his fingers over brass strings, a welcome pain now.

He was slow but Blue was patient where he still wasn’t used to it.

“What’s this song?” Adam asked, softly trying out the chords, trying to manage his plucking and failing. He went back to strumming.

Blue smiled at him, plucking at her ukulele with an ease that Adam couldn’t help but envy. She had come to Lynch Lyric asking Ronan to help her with plucking, and it seemed that Ronan was a better teacher than he originally made himself out to be because she’d learned to do it all in two days.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know it,” she muttered as reply. “I just tried it out this morning.”

“What’s that mean?” Adam asked, trying not to sound offended. It was futile, because Blue knew how to read everyone like Adam did, except Adam never knew how to read himself.

Blue laughed. “It means that I wrote it.”

“Oh,” Adam said. Again, Blue laughed.

They continued trying out the chords, Blue occasionally stopping Adam mid-strum to change or add some things on the notes she wrote her song on. Blue’s handwriting was wobbly because of the bench’s texture, but it was clean enough to decipher easily. Adam was careful not to read what lyrics he could decipher, listening carefully to what he and Blue were strumming out.

The song, Adam decided, was a curious mix of cheery and _something else_ that he couldn’t place. He was never one much for introspection of artful things, much less anything that never concerned the next paycheck. This was an odd thing to notice for sure, because Adam never once knew how to be curious.

“You can ask,” Blue told him after a few moments. Out of the corner of his eye, Ronan walked out of the back with a beat-up guitar case. He muttered something to Matthew and Matthew carefully lifted it onto the counter.

Adam went back to the notes and strummed a few of the chords, a bit embarrassed at having had an open expression of curiosity and a bit ashamed that he had not—could not—provide Blue and Ronan with the same privilege on the subject of his bruise. Out of sheer politeness, he asked, “What’s it about?”

Blue squinted down at her handwriting, “Looks that bad, huh?”

Adam shook his head, flushing. He stood the guitar down on his sneakers, careful not to scrape its already worn wood on the floor of the Lyric. “Not that, I just didn’t think you’d want me reading it, so I didn’t. Uh…”

Ronan sat down on the bench next to Adam, leaning over to look at the paper over Adam’s shoulders, close enough that Adam could feel the warmth on his shoulder. Keeping his eyes on the paper, Ronan grabbed his guitar from Adam’s fingers. The brush of it wasn’t anything different from when they’d touched while Ronan had taught Adam, but it was the thoughtlessness to it that made Adam withdraw a little.

If Ronan noticed, he didn’t bother pointing it out, laying the guitar down on his thigh to better reach the strings. With one last glance at Blue’s paper, he plucked at the chords, setting it on a tone that sounded different from Adam’s tired strums to the song.

Blue followed suit with her ukulele, and soon, Adam had no choice but to hold the notes in his hands so that both players could see their chords.

Played masterfully like this, Adam could hear the cheeriness of each chord, the coordination of each improvising tune that Ronan inserts, the wanting buried far beneath the surface like blood beneath his skin. Blue looked pleased, but Ronan was too focused to notice and the look in his eyes looked _alive_.

Then Ronan opened his mouth and sang the lyrics to what Adam was sure was the chorus.

“ _'Cause maybe we could just pretend, maybe we could see it ‘til the en—_ “ Ronan stopped, then flicked a cool gaze towards Blue.

It wasn’t even ten seconds, but Adam heard it. A singing voice coming from Ronan Lynch, mountain of muscle, co-owner of a BMW, donning cheek bones so sharp Adam could have probably been cut the multiple times Ronan has loomed over his shoulder. Deep, and just the right mix of rich and raspy. Adam wasn't skilled in musical terms, he only knew enough to get by. But he knew what a good singing voice sounded like. And now he felt like his whole world was simultaneously thrown off-kilter and set right.

He wanted to hear more.

Ronan stopped short, glancing at Adam’s face for a second before, “Maggot, what—am I being pitchy?”

Blue stopped her soft strumming, smiling at Ronan, then at Adam, who was still a little openly shell shocked that Ronan Lynch could sing. “Not at all. I haven’t even put a tone to it. Thanks though.”

Ronan hummed a few more lines, sharp eyes going back to the notes in Adam’s hands. Adam was still in every sense of the word at the sound of it. “I expect about six percent of the royalties for this, runt.”

Adam coughed out an aborted laugh that had Matthew hovering towards their general direction and had Blue rubbing his back for comfort. Ronan looked pleased as he always did.

When Blue stood to leave—she always left early to do other things, the sensible girl that she was—she thanked Ronan for the tune and dodged a deliberately messy swing to her head when she added that it maybe kind of was a little bit pitchy. Still on the bench, Adam fumbled over memorizing chords on Ronan’s guitar.

“You need more practice,” Ronan said, sitting back down on the bench next to Adam.

Not wanting to talk about how little he could practice with the lack of replacement things to practice with, Adam said, “I didn’t know you could sing.”

Ronan raised his brow at the obvious deflection but didn’t seem to care much for it. He grinned at Adam, sly and smug and sharp, “Gotta keep you on your toes, Parrish.”

Adam hummed, nodding, “Next, I’ll find out you have your very own tattoo that you got for like, $50 after a drunk night.”

From the counter, Matthew laughed. Ronan threw him a quick glare before looking Adam with a challenging look, letting him process the interaction.

Adam shook his head in disbelief, “A BMW-owning tattooed Irish farmer. You are a mystery surrounding a mystery, Ronan Lynch.”

Ronan snorted, “Not tattooed yet. Plus, I’m a mystery who is trying to teach you guitar. Now, should I—what the… what now?”

This last part was aimed to the racket coming in from the outside of the Lyric. All three of them in the Lyric knew only one thing that could make a loud enough noise.

Gansey burst in before Ronan could reach the front windows to see what it was, and when Gansey opened the door to the Lyric, an old red Mustang followed after the Camaro, the paint job and engine not as loud as the Camaro's, but it was definitely a car Aglionby-worthy. Adam had never seen it before, but he was  only slightly sure that it was Noah’s.

Adam couldn’t bring himself to envy either boy. Or, rather, he couldn’t _allow_ himself to envy it. 

“Have either of you seen Jane?” Gansey asked Ronan and Matthew. Still on the bench hidden behind chimes, Adam didn’t know if he should make his presence known enough to ask who Jane was.

“Why are you asking?” Ronan asked flatly. The door opened again, admitting a very ruffled-looking Noah. Adam felt a bit better knowing that he'd guessed right about the Mustang's owner.

Gansey shook his head at Ronan's question, which either meant that he wasn’t supposed to tell or that he knew just as much as Ronan on as to why. Nothing was ever none of Ronan’s business when it came to Gansey so that possibility was off the list. Gansey’s business soon became your business when you hung out with him for more than thirty minutes.

Noah seemed keen to elaborate for Gansey, so it meant that Gansey hadn’t known why he was asking. Or that Noah was orchestrating all of it. The lazy smile on his face didn't provide much. “She and Gansey have very, _very_ important things to discuss and Gansey’s a mess because he hasn’t had enough sleep to really say anything even though I insisted on it.” And when neither Lynch responded to this, he added, “It’s very important _couple_ things.”

“Oh!” Matthew surmised eloquently for all other occupants of the Lyric. Adam didn't have to see Ronan's face when he threw a fond look at his younger brother for it. “Why didn’t you say so? She literally just left.”

Gansey looked annoyed at this, and he gave that look to Ronan. “Were you just going to withhold this information?”

Ronan shrugged, not at all bothered by Gansey's mood. “What your business to my student isn’t mine, Dick,” he said, which meant that Ronan didn’t know if Gansey was just going to pester Blue and if he were, Ronan didn't want it to happen.

Gansey seemed to understand this and was torn between looking chastised for ‘bothering’ Blue and a bit annoyed at Ronan’s distrust, but he appreciated Ronan’s admission of this because then he said, straightening up, “Thanks, really appreciated it. I’ll see you guys later.”

And then they were gone, just as fast as they'd arrived.

Ronan turned back to where Adam was hiding and sighed, “I can’t believe I just called the maggot ‘my student’.”

Adam snorted, “I'm still processing the fact that you can sing.”

“Nine hundred,” Ronan responded, which was so non-sequitur that Adam just blinked up at him in confusion.

“Dollars,” Matthew remedied from behind the counter. “That’s how much he’ll be spending on his tattoo. It looks _awesome_ , by the way, he showed me the design for it.”

Adam blinked, surprised that he wasn’t offended at the price and that he was curious about it now. Ronan seemed to notice, because he lifted a hand to wave off any questions Adam might have asked about it.

“Anyway, you need something to practice with, if we’re gonna move onto plucking,” Ronan told him.

If Ronan was suggesting what Adam thought he was suggesting then this was going to get complicated easy, because Adam was not going to accept a guitar hand-out like it was a fucking cardboard keyboard. Then again, if Ronan was suggesting what Adam thought he was suggesting, Adam didn’t know what the fuck he was going to say.

 _Thank you, probably_ , Adam reminded himself.

On cue, Ronan made a gesture at Matthew, and without warning, Matthew lifted the case from earlier and put it down the counter not-gently. Ronan scolded him for it and he dutifully ducked his head in shame, and bounced on the balls of his feet when Ronan approached Adam with the beat-up thing.

“It’s my old guitar,” he explained to Adam, laying the case down between the new one and where Adam was sitting. Without much thought, he stroked the beat-up case fondly before pulling down the zipper and pulling the guitar out by the side.

Adam watched with some consideration as foam fell out of the plain black case and nearly laughed when the guitar itself was just as black as the case itself.

Ronan held it up between them, rubbing his thumb over the neck, eyeing the shabbily etched little bird by the pick guard with some fondness. Puffing up his chest, Ronan gave Adam a toothy, sharp grin and said, “Adam, meet Chainsaw.”

Adam laughed this time, but it sounded forced. There was some part of his chest that was aching with affection and gratefulness, and there was some part of his brain that didn’t want the guitar no matter how old it was to Ronan. Rather than being rude, Adam asked, “Really? Chainsaw?”

Ronan frowned, hearing the hesitation in Adam’s voice. This was when Ronan did not let go of the deflection too easily, and Adam dreaded that Ronan would ask Adam if he didn’t like it enough, dreaded that Ronan would get mad at him for shunning out this gift because of some… some _complex_. Adam knew to call it what it was, but it never got easier dealing with it.

“You can just borrow it, Parrish. But it’ll be a real favor if you took it for me,” Ronan told him.

Adam blinked.

“Chainsaw’s really old. It’s a hand-me-down from a Declan that didn’t hate music. It used to be green but I Sharpie’d it for fun. I trust you with her,” Ronan continued, not at all ashamed at what he was implying. That he was giving Adam something that came from a past where the Lynches were happy, that he was giving Adam something he’d loved and cherished, that he was trusting Adam with it.

Adam didn’t want to accept it that easily.

Ronan looked like he didn’t expect Adam to accept it to begin with. _Had I been that militant about money this whole time_ , Adam thought, _or was I just that obvious?_

Adam hadn’t meant to cry.

Ronan looked like he hadn’t meant for Adam to cry either, but there it was.

“Oh, shit, alligator tears, fuck,” he stammered.

Adam laughed, sniffing and cursing softly, “It’s _crocodile_ tears, Lynch,” he said between chest-rattling sob that came out. “And I’m not faking it, you dick.”

“I meant that you had huge-ass tears. Fuck, Adam, c’mon,” Ronan scoffed indignantly, like Adam really was doing it on purpose. Adam almost laughed, but this time, he just coughed and sniffed and _God_. Laying the guitar down gently on the floor, Ronan sat next to Adam on the bench, trying too hard not to panic, fidgeting, hands hovering over where he should touch Adam.

Adam wasn’t used to the gentleness.

Adam wiped his tears off in a futile attempt at stopping them, held his breath in a futile attempt at stopping the sobs from coming out, and when that just got too much, he moved to pick the black guitar—Chainsaw up from the floor, hefting the neck in his hands.

When he hadn’t noticed it but Matthew had moved from behind the counter to sit next to them. Unlike his older brother, he knew how to comfort, and Adam was a little grateful for it because if Ronan had tried to comfort him, he’d have been a bigger mess than this.

Adam wasn’t used to the tears when he wasn’t getting hurt. Ronan hadn’t meant to hurt, but Adam still cried.

Softly, Adam cursed again, staring down at the blackened guitar in his hands, conscious of his knee and Ronan’s thigh touching. “I’ve never had birthday gifts this sentimental,” he admitted.

It was Ronan’s turn to curse softly. “Oh shit damn, it’s your fucking birthday, God fucking bless America.”

Adam laughed again, looking up this time, looking at Ronan, at those blue eyes that had him agreeing to lessons before Ronan was even done asking. Adam had never been so grateful for meeting someone.

“Thank you.”

The following events were surreal to Adam.

They went to Harry's for gelato before Adam’s shift at the auto shop that day, all of it paid with Ronan’s teaching earnings, except most of what Adam had insisted on paying for.

Ronan invited Blue and Gansey and Noah. Matthew had the most flavors in his orders. Ronan had let Adam eat from his bowl.  Blue and Gansey were sharing mostly because of Gansey’s lack of impulse control when it came to his sweet tooth. Noah and Ronan teamed up to convince the staff to play better music.

Adam had never been happier in his life.

Ronan had dropped him off at the auto shop after Harry’s and promptly got kicked out by Boyd when he'd overstayed. Adam laughed and waved him off, thanking him every step of the way.

He left Chainsaw at Boyd’s Auto because he didn’t trust his father with something so precious and Boyd had tolerated it, if only to make it seem like he didn't appreciate seeing new things inside the auto.

When he went back to his parents’ double-wide that night, he was happier than he’d left earlier that day, and not even his parents or his bruises could dampen his spirits.

 _Ronan Lynch gave me his old guitar for my birthday_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that took so long, and so so _so_ sorry for not responding to any comments. Please, just know that I see them from my email all the time and that I appreciate all the sentiments extended towards the continuation of this fic. I would just like to say though, that the note below the chapters is from when I started the whole fic, so it's a bit outdated.
> 
> Also, I might not update even longer because I'll be too busy reading and probably re-reading TRK.
> 
> Um, same warnings from the previous chapters? I mean, it's in the tag. Whatever. Enjoy!

Adam’s steady learning of the guitar’s workings was getting more gradual with the approach of the school year. Of course, though it fared well with Adam—inactivity never suited him, which was one of the smaller reasons he didn’t allow himself to enjoy a long and relaxing summer—the approach of the school year came with a price.

Most of his savings for both tuition and moving out were stuffed into Chainsaw’s case long after he’d received the gift, and Adam had to work harder to keep his parents out of the loop on the other pay stubs he received from doing odd jobs with Blue Sargent and sometimes, doing mandatory jobs for the Lyric that Ronan, at first, hadn’t agreed to. That being said, his savings needed a place to hide that wasn’t at Boyd’s, who knew his father to an extent, or in his room in the double-wide.

So he put it back in the Lyric.

Ronan acted exasperated when he saw his mangy old guitar case behind the counter, but Aurora was just as amused with his huffing as Adam was. When Adam hadn’t provided any information for keeping it there with them, they moved on.

Idly, Adam wondered when he could tell Ronan about everything, if Ronan could tell that Adam’s frequent bruising wasn’t because of voluntary brawls or clumsiness, if he could discern that the only logical answer was abuse.  Adam wondered if one could see the presence of abuse on someone else in the way they accepted debts, or the way they always apologized, or even the way they dressed.

When Ronan gave Adam food for when they’d hung out inside the Lyric for too long, Adam was sure to pay him back in some way. When Adam did something wrong, he couldn’t stand looking at Ronan for too long without apologizing. When Adam walked into the Lyric, no matter how hot it was outside, he always wore shirts with longer sleeves or baggy pants or left his shoelaces untied to disguise a limp or a bruise.

Ronan couldn’t sum it up to muggers or a bar brawl because for starters, it was Henrietta and for finishers, who the fuck would mug _Adam_?

Adam wondered if he was that obvious, if the dust and dirt of Henrietta really was smudged all over him, hiding his very being, if all the oil and grease from Boyd’s had really stuck between the whorls of his fingertips and nails and smeared across his skin, forever irremovable, if his hair was the same color of the dirt because he _belonged there_.

 _Poor, poor Adam Parrish_.

And to think he would be going to Aglionby Academy that year. To think that he would be among the richest of the rich, the bad boy-wannabes who vacationed in places that Adam could only ever dream about, the sons of politicians and CEOs and doctors, the expensive clothes, expensive cars.

 _One day_ , Adam thought to himself. One day, he could have all of that. One day, he could leave. He thought, again, of the bills folded and tied together inside the front pocket of Chainsaw’s case, calculated again and again how much money he needed to finance himself, to finally leave the home that never wanted him in the first place.

_One day, liar, you can fake your way into sustainable living. Fucking pitiful, poor, poor Adam Parrish._

“Focus, Adam,” Ronan muttered, snapping his fingers beneath Adam’s nose in the way he knew agitated Adam constantly.

Adam blinked, then, “Sorry.”

“You missed a chord there.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop.”

Adam stopped. Ronan moved to straddle the bench like Adam was straddling the bench and leaned forward in a way that stole Adam’s breath and made him aware that Aurora was just in the back room, boiling some water for coffee. Ronan’s stare was intent and as alive as it was when he was playing the guitar or the piano or any other instrument.

“Sorry,” Adam whispered one last time, because his voice never came out right when Ronan had him in his sights so intently, and he was staring again.

Adam hadn’t known what he’d expect to come out of Ronan’s mouth, but it was not the words, “Why do you keep saying sorry?”

And this was it.

Adam could never lie to Ronan, but Adam would lie to him and it will hurt and Adam would find no reason not to lie but he would also see all the reasons not to lie and his thoughts were confused. Ronan’s eyes always made him question morality and the things he could and should say _yes_ to. Like Chainsaw, like music lessons for the summer, like friends, like going to Aglionby—but no, it was not Ronan who had walked up ahead of him in the market, but yes, figuratively it was.

In Ronan’s eyes, Adam was lost in the battle of whether could or should say yes to Ronan Lynch, because he always does.

“Because I keep fucking up,” Adam answered after a moment too long, but Ronan was still waiting so it didn’t matter. It was a truth but not the full truth.

Ronan didn’t seem to like the insinuation of that reason— _I keep fucking up—_ on being the full truth, or didn’t like the way Adam had said it, or didn’t like the way Adam’s voice had made it sound odd, or didn’t like that Adam wasn’t telling the full truth.  The possibilities were endless; nothing was impossible.

Ronan didn’t like it, but instead of pointing it out like he should, he just pointed down at the chord Adam had missed, and said, “You didn’t. Fuck up, I mean. You just missed this chord. Do it again,” and didn’t move back or anything, just stared Adam head on.

Adam wasn’t fully grateful for the out, it felt too much like a pass, but Ronan’s nonchalance about it was not unwelcome or unfamiliar so he let it go.

When Aurora came back with their coffee, Adam stood to intercept halfway, thanked her with a smile, and blew on the steaming cup. Ronan watched him do all this, taking his mug from Adam, just as black as Chainsaw and his work shirt, his eyes blue and still intense and searching.

Adam glanced at him, then glanced away, sipping at his coffee.

“School will be starting soon,” Aurora said conversationally and wistfully, her attention aimed at the clear windows of the Lyric. “I’d be cooped up in here all day again.”

Adam smiled at her again, and she returned it cheekily. “I’ll come and visit as often as I can, Mrs. Lynch.”

“That’d be nice of you, dear.” She turned her gaze towards Ronan, sitting silently on the bench. “Ronan,” she called, and she had meant to say _Ronan_ unlike Niall, who replaced the name with the words he couldn’t say. “Join a club, will you?”

Ronan scoffed, but didn’t disagree with the idea.

Adam perked up at this. “Ronan can do sports,” he suggested.

“Oh, he does—err, did,” Aurora told him, like Ronan wasn’t in the room with them, but not in a mean way. It was never in a mean way with Aurora. “He used to play tennis until he said he wanted to hold up the fort in here.”

Ronan mumbled, “Which is to say, I got tired of hitting things.”

Adam laughed, “Will you ever really though?” He knew that Ronan knew how to box, information he’d snagged from Gansey, who had been eager to learn recently. It wasn’t hard to imagine Ronan and his built shoulders to be from a world that had rules for the punches pulled and where to aim them.

Ronan shrugged.

“I’ll be going to Aglionby this year,” Adam said, but paused for a moment when he considered why he had told the Lynches this information. Not wanting to seem like he regretted his own words, he asked, “Doesn’t Gansey go there?”

Ronan looked at him again, “I go there too. Welcome to the bird club.”

Adam laughed.

And they never talked about it again. Not about Adam’s _sorry_ s or Chainsaw’s presence near the counter of Lynch Lyric or Adam’s attendance at Aglionby Academy.

* * *

 

Until they did.

Adam was off work on all of his jobs, it was a Sunday afternoon, and Adam’s fingers were on their way to repairing themselves from his latest stint with Chainsaw’s strings. He’d been getting better with remembering his finger positioning, so Ronan had driven them off the gravel and dusty plains to somewhere nature-y and quiet, saying that it was _only a few minutes away anyway, Parrish, relax, don’t you think I’ve taken too long to kill you if I wanted to?_

So Adam agreed to go.

Adam noticed the exit they were taking. _Singer’s Falls_.

Ronan was going home. He was taking Adam with him.

The lack of invite or words didn’t surprise Adam as much as how okay he was that Ronan hadn’t told him beforehand, because it meant that Ronan didn’t plan for the trip, he just went. They just closed the store down, wordlessly climbed into the BMW, and set off into the afternoon.

Adam was going to see where Ronan went home.

Admittedly, he was a bit curious.

Many a downtime session involved Ronan and his family members recounting funny stories for the sake of conversation. Climbing trees, getting sick with freshly picked fruits, finding barn mice, running away from the hose whenever Aurora whipped it out to clean her muddy boys. It all sounded idyllic and fictional to Adam, though logically he knew that there were parts of the countryside that were like that.

(The Barns. That was what Ronan had called it, capital B and all.

“Dad named it, okay, stop looking at me like I gave it the dumb name,” Ronan defended himself when Adam looked at him, unimpressed.)

The scenery rushed past them, a square black bullet shooting past saturated pastures of yellow and red and green against the cerulean blue sky. Adam tried not to stare too long, and couldn’t really because the BMW slowed down to climb a path up, up, and up still, the road becoming claustrophobic with the way that the trees, a darker shade of green, pressed in at the vehicle as they drove on. The curves of these roads were sharp and the ramps were steep, and Adam had to work his jaw so that his ears wouldn’t hurt with the altitude change.

And then the tree line thinned on one side of the road, on Ronan’s side, and then suddenly, it was fields again, rolling and colorful like a picture of an oddly painted stormy ocean, vastly different from the dull and dusty fields on sea level. It hurt Adam’s eyes to look, but he looked anyway, leaning forward in his seat. There were cattle and sheep and barns spattered all over the field, red and white and black. There were a few copses of trees that bore fruits fresh for the picking and there was a big house in smack dab in the middle of it, stone walls fencing the BMW away from the enormity of it. It was a patchwork of storybook pictures and paintings and it looked like a picture from a post card.

A second later, Adam realized that _this_ was the Barns.

Ronan pulled into the uneven cobblestone driveway, slowing down further then stopping.

“Welcome to the Barns,” Ronan said, and there was no smile to his face, but there was a look in his eyes that was fierce and proud, the look he had when he had pulled Chainsaw out of her case. “I’ll give you a tour.”

They got out, and Adam was hit by how small he felt in these vast plains, how slow time could pass and how obvious it was to tell its passing with the open sky. Ronan walked ahead, not looking to see if Adam would follow. He was a dark figure on a wide base of lighter color.

Adam ran to keep up.

Ronan showed Adam his cows, each with names from an American president that he insisted was really Declan and Aurora’s fault because they had to make him remember the names somehow. He showed Adam the hen houses, and then he showed Adam the barn mice, and then they waved at Niall, who was leg-deep in horse shit at the back of the house. Nearby, the horses whinnied and swung their tales tauntingly.

“You two could help me,” Niall shouted. Adam tried not to wince at the stench as a breeze blew by.

As if sensing Adam’s discomfort, Ronan responded with a laugh and shouted back, “I would love to, but I’m doing a tour.”

Niall crowed at this, the sound delighted and teasing in the way that made Adam feel bashful. “Is your boy staying over for dinner?”

This kind of endearment was normal, coming from Niall. But it wasn’t for Adam, so when he heard it, he couldn’t help but avert his gaze elsewhere—where else, there was a vast expanse of green and cerulean and reds and blacks and whites—so that he wouldn’t think about how much he liked the indication of what Niall was saying.

Ronan thought it over, then looked at Adam. “Will the jury stay?”

“The jury will not. But some lunch would be debatable.”

Ronan smiled, and Adam smiled.

“Then the decision is final,” Ronan said to him. Then to Niall he shouted, “Nope, but we’ll see if he stays for lunch. Good luck with the horse shit.”

Niall laughed his belly laugh, and the tour continued.

They walked towards the front of the house again, Ronan lifting a bit of the garage door to let Adam peer inside the dark space and see Niall’s infamous motorcycle. Ronan grinned and pointed, waving at Adam to move closer to see what he was pointing at.

It was a biker’s jacket with the words _Irish and Proud_ stitched on the back. “Complete set,” Ronan whispered conspiratorially. “He even has the boots for it.”

Adam laughed, “Wow. Are you gonna grow old and be like that too?”

For a moment, Ronan looked like he was genuinely thinking about it. Adam laughed louder—this place was making him stretch from the smaller person he made himself to be, _I need to get out soon_ — and punched him in the arm, “I was joking, oh my God, _please_ don’t get something like a fire suit and a helmet.”

Ronan grinned at him, sharp and easy, “You dunno, I might look great in it.”

“Just dashing.”

They both laughed at that.

The tour continued.

They walked past the stone wall, where vines grew and the trees stood old and proud by the gates like guardians to the Barns. On one side, it was a tall and looming sycamore, and on the other, it was a plum, with enough fruit that some of them had fallen onto the cobblestone and were crushed by the vehicles that entered and exited the Barns. The air here was tangy with juices long crushed and freshly crushed.

Ronan scoured the tree for any more and picked two ripe ones he found, the ease of the action striking Adam as unusual. For the longest time, Adam had only seen Ronan in the Lyric, his sharp features and black work shirt and expensively distressed jeans among instruments with dark finishes and tones of maroon and black, never really struck Adam as the grew-up-in-a-farm type despite all the anecdotes but here Ronan was, at one with nature and himself, just like how he was with music.

Without warning, Ronan tossed a plum at Adam and didn’t hesitate to eat the one that he picked. Adam fumbled but caught it mid-air, which made Ronan grin in approval.

Together, they kept walking.

They crossed the road and entered the tree line on the other side of the road, with Adam being sensible enough to pick up a sturdy stick and hand it to Ronan, who unquestioningly tapped around the ground as they walked.

Within a few minutes of walking and laughing as they stumbled over roots from old trees and slipped on moss, they came across a clearing and a lake with water clear enough to see the floor of rocks and pebbles. Fish darted by and dragonflies hovered over and away, lily pads floated around. There was a dock that stretched out from the shore but did not reach too far. There was a shed nearby, and Adam realized that this was a place for summers in the Lynch family.

“Ronan,” Adam whispered. He couldn’t help the volume of his voice, or the lack thereof, because compared to the enormity of the Barns’ fields, this was small and private and still held colors that were muted and misty and dark. It invoked a sense of sacredness in Adam, though he was not particularly religious.

Ronan set a quick pace and walked up the dock, leaving Adam behind to stare at his surroundings as they did when they arrived at the Barns. Adam watched him do this, and see just how picturesque everything was, how Ronan seemed to fit perfectly into this painting.

Adam was slow to follow Ronan onto the dock, but when he reached the other teen, they were overlooking the wideness and the movement of the lake, and how it looked like a shifting mirror under the vast sky and the dark forest surrounding it. Ronan sat on the edge, his shoelaces dipping into the clear waters. Adam sat beside him.

“This is nice,” Adam said, because it was.

Ronan agreed, but they did not need to tell each other that to know. It was an afternoon bereft of words that weren’t meaningful or groundbreaking.

As Adam looked over the lake, he soon became aware of the time, how the sun shone directly above them, casting everything in a looming shadow, and he soon became aware of eyes on him.

Ronan did not look away when Adam turned his head, so Adam did his best not to avert his own eyes from Ronan’s under the sunlight. Ronan was brown, and red with sun exposure, and too damn alive next to dusty Adam in his baggy jeans that smelled like oil and grease, a stark contrast against the nature around them and the smell of wheatgrass and musk coming from Ronan. It hurt to look at Ronan like this, but it wasn’t a bad hurt so Adam clung to it like a leech and continued to look.

“What are you raising money for?” asked Ronan, and it was not pitying or accusatory or anything made to view Adam as weak and desperate for help and a friend. It was curiosity that Adam lacked and craved for growing up, a curiosity that wanted to know about _him_ and why _him_ and it was refreshing and new. It was terrifying.

Adam broke eye-contact. He knew that he could tell Ronan this, but he was terrified it could branch questions out that led to the dark roots of Adam’s origin. He was not ready to share that just yet.

Ronan didn’t push it when the silence stretched out for too long, both of them listening to the ambience of the waters burbling at the dock legs, in the sigh of branches and leaves as trees swayed with the wind, in the wails of cicadas and the songs of birds above and around them.

Ronan wasn’t impatient or demanding. He was just curious, and he was still looking at Adam with those intense eyes. It was not as unnerving as it was _unraveling_. Adam sighed.

When Adam answered with a quiet and hesitant “everything,” Ronan hummed instead of asking what it meant, possibly knowing what it meant. Adam didn’t know what to do with that possibility.

Adam did not like uncertainty, so he clarified, “My partial tuition for Aglionby, future potential taxes, groceries, rent pay for where I’ll stay after: everything.”

Ronan was not curious about that though, and even though Adam felt that he’d over-shared, thought that Ronan’s curiosity would lean towards concern for Adam’s family home, Ronan did nothing more than hum his assent. And then Ronan averted his gaze elsewhere.

The silence continued and ebbed from comfortable to dizzyingly sleepy. Adam felt that if he could let himself experience summer, this would be what it would feel like. The inactivity would have driven him nuts, but the memory of the feeling of _this_ : of doing nothing but just hang out with someone companionable and feel safe enough to dream about _after_. It would have been enough of a summer for Adam.

* * *

 

The trek back to the Barns was full of silence, the companionable kind, like laughter during teaching sessions. Adam held the poking stick this time, and Ronan trailed behind him, trying not to be nervous at the feeling he should grow accustomed to, trying not to think about anything. When Adam tripped, Ronan’s had shot out to hold him by the elbow.

They continued, still silent save for when Adam muttered, “Thanks.”

The Lynches’ family house was nothing and everything like its looming and enormous exterior. It was all the history of a family, a storybook showing of growth and warmth: height charts marked D, R, and M by the doorway to the living room, picture frames hung in hallways, an old dusty upright piano holding even more picture frames and a few others, the rifles hung over the fireplace, the little knick knacks by the living room coffee table.

Every room held a story; every picture held a scene; every person inside the house was a character. All except for Adam, who felt like he was nothing but a reader, trespassing wanderer invited in by his guide.

The kitchen and dining room were merged, and it was the kind of kitchen and dining room that was as old as the house could get, only modified with what appliances there were on its counters. They had those flat electric stoves made and sold along shiny new ovens, but the kitchen counter and sink were old and used. It was mixed and matched, and it all smelled wonderful to Adam, exactly like a hearty kitchen that the Lynches, maker of instruments, would own.

Aurora and Matthew were serving up the food when they came in.

“Oh, Adam,” Aurora called out, “Lovely to see you, dear. Ronan didn’t say you were coming over.”

Adam bashfully replied, “I didn’t know I was invited either, Ma’am. Would you mind if I helped you with that?” This was aimed at the table, unready to serve however many people were in the house. Aurora looked at it, then to Matthew trying to bring a pile of plates to the center of the table without any risk of dropping it.

“Not at all, dear. Ronan, please call Declan down, and see if your father’s done showering.”

Declan. Right, it was Sunday. Declan frequented the Lynch household and Henrietta’s St. Agnes Parish Church on Sundays, driving all the way from DC to see his family every weekend. How could Adam forget.

“Oh my God,” Matthew whispered excitedly, mostly to himself and looking wide-eyed at Adam, then at his mother, then back to Adam. “You’re gonna love this.”

Adam was not certain he would, and neither was he certain that Matthew meant lunch or eating lunch with the Lynch family.

Lunch was efficiently served with Adam’s assistance, Niall was bathed, and Declan was brought to the table. Adam should not have been surprised that the Lynches had enough foresight to have two empty chairs for guests because then he wouldn’t have remained standing after the Lynches were assembled. Well, he was, and he did.

It amused him to see how mismatched all the chairs around the table looked, not one the same with the other. In comparison to Niall Lynch and his sons, this was surprisingly contradictory.

“Sit, boy,” Niall said when the family was all seated. Adam blinked. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there, observing. “No need to be shy. Aurora makes a mean fried chicken.”

Adam, for a second, thought to say that those three statements had no connection at all to each other, but instead of protesting, Adam obediently sat.

Aurora did, in fact, make a mean fried chicken, and Adam would not need to either label Niall Lynch as a grandiose liar or be embarrassed by how much he was consuming. On the other hand, a few exceptionally mean things on the table included the looks that Declan gave Ronan when the Lyric was brought up in any conversation, and additionally, in Adam’s opinion, the mushroom soup that Matthew and Adam retrieved when the fried chicken ran out too soon.

“Adam, boy,” Niall said, soup dripping down from his mouth to his chin and a scolding cluck from Aurora coming after his words were said. It seemed like Niall was incapable of removing the word ‘boy’ from how he viewed Adam. Adam felt like he should be insulted but was not. “I hear you were going to Aglionby this year.”

There it was. Inwardly, Adam cursed Ronan for talking about Adam to his family so much. Outwardly, he bumped Ronan's knee under the table.

“Yes, sir,” Adam responded softly, looking at Niall and pointedly not-looking at Ronan, slowing his pace with the food to speak properly. “I got a partial scholarship not so long ago.”

Niall hmmed, just as Aurora puffed up in what Adam thought of as pride, and as Declan glanced at his direction.

“Told you he was a genius,” Ronan muttered, but it was in a tone that was mocking so Adam compulsively raised a hand to swat at his arm, causing soup to drip down onto Ronan’s pants from the spoon that was midway to his mouth. Ronan squawked, and Matthew laughed, and Adam smiled.

“So you’ve said,” Niall muttered at Ronan. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, he looked at Adam, “My boy here’s got a knack for Latin but every other class he flunks.”

“Dad!” Ronan protested, ears turning pink from the corner of Adam’s vision.

Niall didn’t care much for Ronan’s protests, “Gotta pick up some study habits from a genius.”

Matthew looked pensive at this, “I mean, if Adam’s a genius, wouldn’t that mean he wouldn’t need to study?”

Declan dismissed that statement with a huff, “He’s not omniscient, he’s just human.”

Adam breathed a sigh, “Thank you, Declan. Really, I’m just—it’s the studying.”

Ronan and Niall scoffed simultaneously, sounding exactly like each other, past and future versions, “Modesty!”

Aurora shushed them, “It’s called _humility_ , boys. Now, eat your lunch.”

They ate their lunch.

* * *

 

Afterwards, Adam let Ronan drive him back.

There was an ache within him, something that felt like inadequacy, that he had to give Ronan truth for truth. Ronan had shown him to the Barns, so Adam would show him to the trailer park.

There was a rush in his head, rearing like a crazed horse, something that made his palms sweat and his heart pound, and it felt like fear but Adam didn’t know what to fear with Ronan. There was a shame in his stomach that made him think that he was being unfair. Shouldn’t he exchange happy truth with happy truth? But what would he tell Ronan?

When Ronan drove into the remote dirt road leading to the dusty, flat trailer park, he did not bat an eye at the homes, couldn’t help but look at the dogs milling around the BMW as it purred in vicinity of the Parrish’s double-wide.

Ronan stopped when Adam asked him to stop a few yards away from the double-wide, he didn’t protest or ask why.

“I had a nice time today,” Adams said, knowing that the next time they saw each other, it would be in Aglionby Academy campus. “I liked your cows.”

Ronan grinned at this, now that he was away from the Barns, his sharp edges were back. The continued existence of these soft and sharp parallels was harder to fathom than Adam initially thought. The way his eyes darted around the trailer park held the feeling of observation but lacked the judgment that would have driven Adam insane.

What was Adam doing, hanging out with this boy?

“Mom says you can come by any time,” Ronan told him, laughter in his voice that Adam associated with him laughing at the general idea of something said more than the speaker who spoke it. “Something about good influences and more comments about her cooking?”

Adam flushed a bit at that, remembering how happy Aurora was with how much he was eating, too conscious now to think about how little he’d eaten before lunch, but he distracted himself from the memory by going to the backseat and grabbing his bike.

They didn’t say goodbye to each other when it was all said and done, but Adam felt, again, that he’d over-shared parts of himself somehow. It was conflicting with the urge to give Ronan a truth that was not full of anger and alcohol. He wobbled with his squeaky bike, up to the double-wide. He frowned up at the parted curtains by the kitchen windows.

For some reason, he couldn’t help but feel justified for saying nothing at all for the past sixteen years of his life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanity, egotism, arrogance, it could be all of these possibilities.

His first day at Aglionby was a picture of sophistication and bitterness framed by desperately gathered pride and determination. Long story short: Adam hated the wealth but he wanted to be wealthy so he had to suck it up.

That morning was full of anticipation, each step more daunting than the previous. Aglionby Academy was the biggest campus in Henrietta, and it was the only and oldest prep school in Henrietta. Adam was admitted with a partial scholarship and a chance for the stars, and this morning was probably one of the most life-changing moments he’s had since music sessions.

And then, it was one student orientation after another, and it was mind-numbing, to say the least. Adam forced himself to listen, ignoring all urges to be miserable about the fact that he could have been _working_ instead of sitting inside navy carpet-smelling Borden House learning a dead language.

He felt a glance turn his way, then back. Adam took a breath, glanced towards Ronan, then away.

Adam wasn’t stupid. He knew what this meant, what the trip to the Barns meant, what the music sessions had meant the first time, the second time, and all the times after. He knew what all the glances meant, what receiving Chainsaw meant.

But the doubt that clutched him so tightly was almost as good as the Henrietta dust sprinkled over his image. It wouldn’t go away, it haunted his every step. Vanity, egotism, arrogance, it could be all of these possibilities.

He felt a glance turn his way again, then back. Adam returned the favor.

Whatever issues Adam had were best kept in the shadows—be it skewed egotism or his abuse. For as long as he could, he’d keep it all away from the light of day. Reminiscing the Friday at the Barns, he wasn’t sure how long his resolve on that oath to himself was going to hold. Depending on how much Ronan was side-stepping their issues, Adam was even more uncertain of those chances.

 _Truth for truth_ , Adam bitterly recalled. He didn’t want any dirt on Ronan, but he wasn’t going to pop any blisters unless it was called for.

At the front of class, Barrington Whelk droned on about the value of learning the origin of a language, to know the roots of what let everyone understand each other. On a good day, Adam would have focused on those words, would have been enraptured by the lecture.

Looking out the window, Adam saw the clear sky through a dusty filter. He was not enraptured by the lecture despite the good day. After all, it was how he saw fit of the day that counted. And to him, this was a rather dull one.

His gaze dropped down to the boy beside him.

Ronan glanced again, caught Adam’s gaze, and gave a small wave and a rather forced bored look. Adam nodded at him, the smile that spread on his face involuntary and genuine.

With the doubt that clutched his heart, hope bloomed next to it. That hope was probably the most beautifully dangerous thing blooming inside him, next to his inherited anger.

Again, his mind wandered away from Latin, his eyes settling at the hairs on the back of Gansey’s head.

Adam shared two blocks with Ronan, two with Gansey, the Latin extra with both of them, and took the Bio hall he could share with both seniors and sophomores in exchange for any clubs that he couldn’t have joined (which meant that he shared with Noah). It was a busy schedule, and it was, as Adam had hoped, something to keep him busy for most of the school year. Less time inside the house and more outside on productive things, researching for homework, researching for lessons, studying with friends, that kind of stuff. It might make minor setbacks on some of his jobs, but if it meant that his partial scholarship was being used to its full potential then so be it.

In due time, the bell rang overhead, and Whelk was already out of the classroom before most of the boys in it were out of their own heads. Ronan mumbled about how the mangy fucker was like a cockroach. Adam snorted at this.

Ronan groaned dramatically, slumping impossibly lower in his seat. The strong set of his jaw was parallel to the edge of the desk. “I thought it would never _end_. He does that scholar talk every year, it’s fucking rehearsed and scripted and totally cheating.”

Gansey shook his head at the contempt in Ronan’s voice, “Some of us actually find it interesting.”

Ronan gave Gansey a look that the other was not at all phased by. “Well, I don’t,” he retorted haughtily.

“You’re not the only person taking Latin, Ronan.”

Adam remembered when Niall had told him that Ronan was actually good in this block. Adam wondered if it was only because the other students didn’t really pay attention or if Ronan was actually any good. “Not the only smart guy either,” Adam muttered.

Gansey looked surprised at this, shouldering his beat-up messenger bag, like he hadn’t expected Adam to offhandedly praise himself while being sarcastic. Ronan merely grinned, standing to stretch. Adam grabbed his own bag, then darted his hand out for Ronan’s. Ronan stopped stretching to grab it from Adam’s clutches. They pulled back and forth for it, letting Gansey take their lead out of the classroom. Adam let go and laughed as Ronan fell back a little.

“ _Contritionem praecedit superbia_ , Parrish,” Ronan said. They were foreign words to Adam, and Ronan knew it.  The mocking tone suggested it was an insult, and it told Adam what he needed to know when it came to Ronan: the awful and borderline offensive jokes crossed all language barriers.

He tried not to look like he had no idea what Ronan had said, and he tried not to feel bad about it when he failed. A quick look at Gansey told him that he wasn’t alone on the incomprehension part.

“God, why did I even try?” Ronan added after a beat. He gave Adam a look, and it wasn’t condescending or judging. Somewhere within Adam, a fire roared at the lack of judgment in Ronan’s eyes. It was like Adam _wanted_ to feel the blood rush beneath his skin because of all of Ronan’s beating around the bush.

Ronan met Adam’s underlying anger head on. Somehow, it infuriated him further. “I meant you shouldn’t be too cocky, because really, I don’t brag but I’m good with this.”

Gansey laughed at that, and Adam had to force a laugh out. Ronan caught it, but didn’t say anything. Adam took a deep breath then shrugged.

He forced a smug little look on his face and tried not to notice Ronan noticing that too. “I mean, I’m not really bragging too much, but if you want to be threatened by that go ahead.” He not-so lightly kicked a few chairs back into their tables as they made their way down to the front. He tried not to feel better about kicking the chairs, but when he glanced back at Ronan, he found it a bit hard to do. “The last time I bragged and didn’t have anything to hold it up with, I had to learn how to hotwire in thirty seconds.”

The disbelieving laugh that came out of Ronan was dulled, and Adam tried not to feel better about that too.

When they’d separated after Borden house, Adam took apart the anger that had been triggered by the blank look on Ronan’s face while he politely raised his hand up and asked the teacher questions. The teacher politely and delightfully answered his queries, happy to have someone eager in their class for a change, but Adam’s thoughts were clearly somewhere else.

Ronan’s voice echoed inside the chambers of his mind.

 _Why did I even try?_ The question was charged with the kind of rich contempt that dripped from certain Aglionby boys, or rather, Adam had heard the tone enough to recognize it and trigger something within him. Aglionby boys thought Henrietta locals were simple and stupid. Was Adam simple and stupid?

 _Why did I even try?_ Hearing the tone in Ronan’s voice was somehow infuriating to him. But why? If Ronan and he were so different in all walks of life, why wouldn’t he expect that kind of tone from Ronan?

Adam knew the answer. He just didn’t want it to be true.

Ronan was his friend.

All this turmoil was Adam’s fault.

* * *

 

School was going great. Adam was beginning to balance out his studies and his jobs and learning music with the Lynches. Somehow, Aurora always managed to wrangle Adam into some Tupperware dinner at the Lyric before his shift at the convenience store, and somehow, Ronan or Matthew always managed to never finish their shared lunches. Adam would pretend that he didn’t notice all the extra effort into acting like they weren’t feeding Adam, but he liked it and let them know that he appreciated it.

Sometimes he and Ronan would walk past the music room, he’d realize that it’s a day off from most of his post-school jobs, and then he would drag Ronan in with him so that they could borrow the piano from Mrs. Keller. They would spend all of the extracurricular hours that Ronan should have spent at the tennis court and they would play different tunes side-by-side. Adam pretended not to feel the flutter in his stomach, or pretended not to remember the haughty question tumbling carelessly out of Ronan’s mouth at Borden House.

He also pretended not to see the relief on the set of Ronan’s shoulders when Adam seemed to have forgiven that moment between them.

That fifth Friday into school, Adam was about as ecstatic as he could let himself be.

He let himself be happy that he’d yet receive a bruise that he couldn’t hide and would have to call in sick for. For the past month, Robert Parrish hadn’t been any less of a looming figure of doom in Adam’s fears, but he’d been _less_ in Adam’s focus, which was happier pointed elsewhere.

He let himself be happy that he’d yet to be piled by any projects or assignments thrown at him unlike all the other Aglionby boys. Honestly, seeing Gansey and the others fumble for their projects and try to reign in Adam on their stress was amusing. Where Gansey admired Adam’s composure and orderliness, the remaining Lynch brothers and Noah were often mockingly scornful of it. Adam let himself bask under their affections.

He let himself be happy that he’d yet to get into trouble by being friends with Ronan Lynch. Quickly into Aglionby, Adam realized that Ronan would rather do mundane farming things than go to Aglionby, and while this was both a shame and a waste of money in Adam’s perspective, he chose not to voice his opinions at the risk of a fight. It all had to do with an incident with Declan one Sunday in the Lyric, about Ronan’s academic route and the vitriolic words “that shitty tie looks more like a fucking noose than you’re giving it credit” thrown between them.

Ronan didn’t have the guts to broach the subject to Adam, and he was sure that they were both grateful for it. He would rather have not argued with Ronan about their differing ambitions.

Like he said, as happy as he let himself be. It wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies, and he hated that he had to remind himself that. The Lynch family may have seemed happier than Adam but it still had its transgressions. He just hoped that whatever issue Ronan and Declan had would be resolved.

Fridays were held for rest days, because that meant that Adam had the whole weekend off at the Lyric, probably teaching with Ronan or hanging out with Gansey, Blue, Noah, Matthew, and Ronan. They would all cover songs, occasionally help Blue compose her music, help each other with homework if it ever came to it. They would all just be friends in the one place that brought them all together.

Sometimes, he would hang out with _just_ Ronan, but that was a given. He and Ronan would always be hanging out despite the day. Without words, they would find ways to end up nearly shoulder to shoulder. Ronan would slip into the seat in front of him at the library, gnawing at his leather bracelets. Adam would show up at Ronan’s tennis practice on free afternoons with two bottles of water for each of them and a bag of tuna sandwiches from the store a few minutes away. Ronan would come into the convenience store shift Adam usually had during evenings. Adam would see if they could one-up each other in Latin.

“Parrish, if you take another step, you’re this close to _walking_ to the fucking Lyric,” Ronan called after Adam. Of course it was Ronan, because who else would both threaten and joke with Adam at the same time and get away with it. Adam reckoned Ronan got away with a lot more things than gave him credit for.

Adam stopped in his tracks, now entirely conscious of how he actually was heading towards the Aglionby gates without thinking about it. He was so lost in his thoughts that he’d forgotten that he left his bike at the Lyric that morning after his obligatory bi-weekly shift at Boyd’s in favor of having some time with the piano, Chainsaw, and cleaning the windows of the Lyric for some pocket money, and the backroom’s coffee machine. If he paid close enough attention, he could still smell the oil and grease that he’d tried his best to shower off when they’d arrived at Aglionby.

When Adam turned to look, Ronan was looking at the sky overhead, tongue sticking out as he blindly fished for something in his bag. Adam waited, and watched as Ronan triumphantly pulled both his car keys and a couple of potato chip bags out of his bag.

Adam sighed, picking up the empty bags. “What a mess. I wonder why you never get fat.” He walked towards the nearest trash can and threw it in.

Ronan mockingly flexed a bicep at his face as he walked past Adam towards the BMW. Adam didn’t laugh, but he almost did, punching Ronan at the shoulder when they caught up with each other.

“You’re off work today, right?” Ronan asked, and Adam already knew he was going to be strung into something before Ronan even asked the right question because Ronan never asked about Adam’s schedule, and when he did, it was usually so that he could string Adam into something that would lead to something Adam would find fun.

“What are we doing?” Adam asked in response. Ronan grinned at his understanding, and Adam already knew he was going to agree to being strung into something before Ronan said what it was, because he knew that he was going to enjoy this as much as Ronan would if he thought to invite Adam.

Ronan twisted to open the passenger side door to the BMW, standing in a way that made sure that he was blocking Adam’s way. Ronan bent over and pointedly started waving his ass at Adam’s general direction while whistling the tune of the oh-so infamous Murder Squash song. Ronan leaned back out to Adam’s averted eyes, and Adam looked back to Ronan’s sharp grin, knowing look and the harsh shove that closed the glove box.

There was a flyer hanging between Ronan’s fingers, offered to Adam.

Adam had seen it many times before to know what it said. These things were taped to the front window of the convenience store, by the office window at Boyd’s, hastily pasted into a row around the farmer’s market, down the strip where Lynch Lyric resided. It looked ambitious with its pop-out text and neon color palette. The overall look was designed to draw eyes and give physical pain to those who stared too long.

_OPEN MIC MUSIC NIGHT—A SINGER’S FALLS FUNDRAISING EVENT_

Adam grabbed it from Ronan’s waiting hand, moving to lean on the BMW next to Ronan. He laid it on the roof and read the rest that he usually overlooked:

 _An event put together by the women of 300 Fox Way and Congress candidate Mrs. Reyna C. Gansey and held at the Antebellum strip_.

“This is legit the most horrible flyer I’ve ever seen,” Ronan commented with a grin. “It’s fucking amazing. Plus, we get paid for it.”

Adam scrunched up his nose, then looked to Ronan. He blinked away the flashes left from staring at it too long. “I thought it was a fundraiser, why are we getting paid for it?”

Ronan grabbed the offending flyer and threw it into the backseat of the still open BMW. Adam gestured for Ronan to step aside so he could step into the vehicle. Ronan stepped aside, but didn’t go around the back to get into the driver’s side. Instead, he didn’t step out of the way, made it difficult for Adam to close the door, and stood there, staring down at Adam. He counted off the list of things:

“Well, for one, Gansey’s mom is putting it for some red-tie dudes at Ye Olde White House, meaning they’ll be there with money. Politics shit, I don’t understand it.”

Adam thought Ronan didn’t understand a lot of things regarding the Ganseys involvement in this, but didn’t comment.

“Secondly, Blue’s whole house of psychic chicks is gonna be there _with_ the red-tie dudes, and they’ll probably read the future or what the fuck ever. Maybe they’ll control minds with their psychic bullshit. Maybe her cousin’s gonna make out with some cows. Maybe they’ll spike the punch, if I’m lucky.”

Adam looked unimpressed, “You’re not.” Adam thought Ronan didn’t understand why the psychics from 300 Fox Way were involved in this either, and he didn’t have to comment on that because really, you should never question why a psychic will end up in certain places.

Ronan rolled his eyes. “I can dream, Adam. And lastly, dad helped clear out the whole strip. It’s a fucking open mic night and we’re gonna fucking rock it, so of course we’re getting paid to keep people entertained.”

Ronan leaned forward to rest his forehead on the roof of his BMW, looming over Adam unintentionally (or intentionally. Ronan seemed to intend for shit to happen when it did). The sky behind him was just beginning to show signs of a sunset, and it made him a silhouette, black shadow against the black paint of the BMW, black exterior against the tan leather of the seat of the interior, black slacks against the black of Adam’s Aglionby sweater.

Ronan stood straight, shoving his hands in his pockets, an oddly nervous gesture in comparison to chewing on his leather bracelets. “So, I’m going to drive us back to the Lyric, we’re going to grab Chainsaw, we’re gonna go to the Barns, shove your everything money in my old locker box with the code, and then we’re gonna rock open mic night.”

Adam looked up at Ronan, at the dent of the BMW’s roof on his forehead. Adam looked up and noticed the time ticking by, looked up and knew that his father would be very cross if Adam went home past ten on a jobless night, looked up and took the risk that Adam’s father would be too drunk to remember the days passing by. Most importantly, Adam looked up at Ronan and knew that he had already agreed.

Only, Ronan wasn’t asking. He had counted on Adam coming along.

“As long as I can set my own code, and if I can put that locker box in the Lyric,” Adam bargained, not saying yes until he and Ronan had something to agree on mutually. Ronan was already grinning though. Was this a losing battle to begin with? What was Adam losing?

Ronan didn’t frown, but rather, he didn’t smile either. His eyebrows wanted badly for Adam to come along, but his eyes were curious. “Why the Lyric?”

“I trust it’ll be there when I get back to it,” Adam said, knowing what he was implying, knowing that Ronan wouldn’t ignore the implication. It was the same with Chainsaw, after all, only this was Adam’s future, not Ronan’s past.

Equivalent exchange.

“Deal. Should I drop you off at home so you can… change out of your uniform?” Ronan asked. For a second, Adam dreaded that Ronan would suggest that Adam could ask for permission. If Ronan wanted Adam to come with, they would count on Adam’s parents never finding out to begin with.

Adam shook his head. Ronan didn’t question that any further.

They were five notches above the speed limit on the way to the Lyric when Ronan said, “I might have some clothes that could fit you.”

Adam didn’t say anything else about it, but thought that maybe Ronan caught the agreement in his non-response.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Adam and Ronan had arrived at the Barns, two hours before the event started, they shoved Adam’s earned money unceremoniously into Ronan’s old locker box with the new code. Looking at the cold metal gray box, settled on top the kitchen counter, it looked so inconspicuous, so banal against the story-book environment of the Lynch household. It didn’t look like it held the key to Adam’s future outside the trailer park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry it's been too long. since this is one of those spontaneous fics, i'm kind of at the loss for what to write for this, and since i didn't want it to be too fanservice-y, i wanted something solid planned out for it. i hope y'all don't mind the irregular updates too much!

“Alright, guys, what’s a song event without a little 2011?” Ronan’s disembodied voice rang out, enthusiastic. Or, well, it was probably Ronan who said it. Adam was having a hard time seeing him over the sound equipment currently hovering over the keyboard set up.

The crowd wasn’t big or hick enough to go wild over the stupid question, but the people were slightly eager to hear what Ronan had to offer on-stage, so there were a few cheers. It was unquestionable that Ronan’s question received some hoots and _fuck yeah_ s from the crowd, despite the presence of many old white politicians for the Gansey part of the event. The Lynches were known in Singer’s Falls, them being the only prominent Irish Catholic family with lots of property will do that, and they were also largely famous to about ninety percent of Henrietta’s sober population because of their music and instruments.

When Adam and Ronan had arrived at the Barns, two hours before the event started, they shoved Adam’s earned money unceremoniously into Ronan’s old locker box with the new code. Looking at the cold metal gray box, settled on top the kitchen counter, it looked so inconspicuous, so banal against the story-book environment of the Lynch household. It didn’t look like it held the key to Adam’s future outside the trailer park.

Adam grasped it, white-knuckled with the effort of not showing how much his hands shook. His head knew the amount of money in the box like it was his own name, and Adam couldn’t seem to shake himself away from imagining all the things that could go wrong with this and seeing all the things that have gone just fine. Ronan seemed to have noticed something amiss, despite Adam’s attempts at hiding, so Adam gave him a little smile and said, “Thank you. This means a lot.”

Ronan didn’t mention it, and Adam didn’t mind. They stuck it in the foot well of Adam’s seat and drove over the speed limit to get to the event.

It was unnecessary and thrilling: feeling the beat of every exaggerated electronic wave of the song control his pulse as it blasted out the speakers, feeling the hum of the BMW’s engine as Ronan gunned it after every vicious curve and turn, savoring the sting of his palm and fingers as he held on, and having the wind ruffle up the smooth and breezy cotton of one of Ronan’s old shirts against his skin. In that moment, the whole world would have fallen beneath them and it would still make Adam grin as sharp as Ronan did.

The strip, when they arrived, was on its way to getting crowded. It was more crowded on a normal day but that was expected. People, familiar and far-fetched, milled about near food stands and booths that held trinkets and ornamentations. Adam noticed the barren booth near the middle, containing a collection of women so odd that it couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than the women of 300 Fox Way. In the distance, the Lyric loomed, sinister, silhouetted against the setting sun and barely reached by weak, hastily set up fairy lights. The stage, at the edge of the strip, was the brightest thing there.

Adam couldn’t recognize the strip in that moment. It was surreal, grand. It was not unlike the Barns, picturesque, holding a story-book quality to it, but it was not quite like it either. There were touches, here and there, of the odd, of the affluent. This event was set up by Ganseys and psychics and Lynches, and it presented itself that way.

Once parked in the usual Lyric-alley spot, once they’d hidden Adam’s lock box inside the back room of the Lyric, Adam had questioned the presence of Chainsaw the guitar in this event.

“I’m not even remotely decent with the guitar,” Adam confessed as he watched Ronan haul the guitar out of the backseat, the other boy clutching onto the case like a parent might with a child.

Ronan laughed at the admission. “No, I fucking know that, man. Matty— the little shit, God, I swear. He broke my guitar strings. So, since technically you only use Chainsaw as a glorified piggy bank-slash-lab rat for our lessons, I figured I’d use her tonight instead of pulling a muscle trying to get new strings.”

Adam nodded, despite the glaring hole in the idea that said _you own a music store, and we’re parked right next to it_. The reason seemed logical enough, and Adam didn’t want to argue. Adam didn’t want to try and suspect Ronan’s motives, not after transferring his money into Ronan’s old lock box, and certainly not while wearing one of Ronan’s old shirts. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t want an argument out of a sense of debt but it felt like a flimsy excuse.

As they walked, Ronan carried his old guitar like he was a five-year old with his worn stuffed toy. In this context, it was true. Adam trailed behind him, and almost tripped when Ronan added, “You’re on the keyboard tonight.”

Adam just stared at the other boy. He tried to remember that Ronan had intended for him to come along the whole time, and that this was planned ahead. He tried to remember that this was what he got himself into, and it was definitely partly his fault.

_Deal with it, Adam. Don’t fight with Ronan. It’s just music, you play every single day._

He forced out all his thoughts regarding stage fright.

And so Adam was on the keyboard that night.

And apparently, Noah was on the drums. That was, possibly, the thing Adam had least expected that evening.

The crowd’s lame roar died out just as lamely as it came. Adam still couldn’t see over his equipment, but he could see Noah by the raised drummer’s stand. Noah raised a hand to wave at him, his wide grin glinting from the lights above.

Ronan’s disembodied voice continued. “Matthew’s running a bit late so we’ll have to improv for back-up vocals. Little runt probably has homework, but I’m not flying solo here.”

His voice sounded different in the speakers, less gruff and anti-social, more alive and chatty. Adam didn’t know if this was the real Ronan or just another side he was beginning to see. Or, well, not see.

Damn this sound equipment.

“So. On the drums, we have my old pal Noah Czerny. He’ll give y’all a roll since he doesn’t need a mic.”

Noah gave them a roll. Adam’s heartbeat rushed to roll with it. Why had he agreed to this again? With the sound of the bass drum controlling his pulse, Adam couldn’t seem to recall.

“And on the keyboard, is my good friend Adam Parrish.”

“Um,” Adam’s voice came out of the speakers, that one syllable packed full of his Henrietta accent. He hadn’t been aware of how quiet he’d been the whole time until he spoke, because apparently the sound equipment in front of him wasn’t just for show. He almost cursed, but caught himself at the last minute. “Would anyone mind adjusting this so the crowd can see me, please?”

Ronan’s laugh was loud in the speakers and it made Adam’s head spin a little. “Poor guy’s drowning in equipment. Stand up and show the people your pretty little mug, Parrish. These guys’ll fix your problem.”

On cue, two men stepped forward from backstage, one of them shooing Adam off his pedestal. He stood and fumbled, wondering if he should help, but fingers hung loose around his arm. He was overwhelmed with the sound of mist and wheat grass.

Ronan.

“Would you mind doing vocals for a while?” Ronan asked, mic away from his mouth, away from Adam’s mouth, mouth next to Adam’s ears. His body tingled. Too close, but they had no other way of hearing each other unless they shouted.

Weakly, Adam waved at the crowd, then hissed at Ronan, “I’m not really a decent singer.”

Ronan gave him a look that was purely just the word _bullshit_ without being uttered. He turned back to the crowd, waving Adam back to his keyboard, which was now less equipped.

A guitar chord was strummed, upbeat and loud, then the next. Ronan’s chuckle was discernible above the metallic strum of each note and set beat in the speakers. “Classic 2011, ladies and gentleman.” Next chord. “For our first song of the night… _Price Tag_.”

Adam resisted the urge of walking off stage. The drums started to roll, the sound of Noah’s laughter carrying over it.

Ronan sang.

Adam played.

Without looking for a cue of any kind, Adam sang the second verse alone, forcing the shake out of his voice, and then sang the chorus and outro with Ronan.

* * *

 

When Blue and Ronan played duet for Blue’s new song _Just Pretend_ , Matthew has been present for four out of ten songs. When Blue sarcastically asked about his punctuality, he just said “I had practice” and didn’t elaborate.

They all parted with the stage when an announcer cut in mid-outro to announce the next band, a few members of the Aglionby crew team predictably named CREW. Behind the stage, their group accepted bottles of water and finger sandwiches from the help with breathless gratitude.

A man approached them, a valley-faced old man. If Adam squinted through the afterimages of the flashing stage lights, he could have sworn it was Mike from the trailer factory.

He gave Ronan a pat on the back, “Good show, boy. Expected nothing less from you Lynches.”

Ronan was not polite. Ronan did not say thanks. Matthew was, so he did.

Adam breathed a sigh as he drained his second bottle of water. This earned the other man’s attention.

“Adam?” There was a smile forming on the man’s lips, one that meant that he recognized Adam and that Adam was right. “Damn, I knew it was the scrawny little kid. Kid, I didn’t know you could sing! Or play the piano for one.”

Adam laughed, sheepish, entirely too conscious of all four curious stares pinned at the back of his head. “Hey, Mike. I, uh, I was just back-up. But thanks. Sir.”

Mike patted him on the back, and Adam was relieved when it wasn’t a harsh slap. “Wait ‘til I tell the boys at work, oh hell.”

 _Oh hell_. Adam tried not to feel a bit squeamish at the notion of this reaching work.

When that was over, Blue and Matthew scattered, leaving Ronan and Adam sitting behind stage, trying to get their shit together after ten whole songs. Adam sat back on the crate that would soon be filled up with the equipment that was used that night. He closed his eyes and let the chatter and muffled sounds of music surround him. His head was spinning and swimming in the chatter, and his whole being was focused on the point of contact by his knee and lower thigh, where Ronan was sitting next to him on the crate, radiating warmth through sheer proximity.

“Was that guy from work or something?” Ronan asked, voice near Adam’s ear like it was on stage earlier. Adam didn’t have to open his eyes to see how close Ronan was to him right now.

“You mean Mike? Yeah, from the trailer factory,” Adam sighed. “He seems to be a big fan of your family’s.”

There was a grin in Ronan’s voice when he said, “Yours too. And you said you weren’t a decent singer.”

Adam opened his eyes. The lights on either side of the stage reached the back, contrasting colors of warm red and cool blue. Ronan’s face was a contrast of colors that both hurt Adam’s eyes and made him look surreal. Adam remembered the whole night and felt like everything was surreal.

What time was it?

“I did,” Adam responded, not looking away, not minding the fact that Ronan’s face was only a few inches from his. They were close enough that Adam could see that Ronan’s forehead and neck were damp with sweat. Adam knew, and didn’t mind, that he was probably as sweaty as Ronan at that moment, if not, more. Their breaths were heavy, and Adam was entirely too aware of how impossibly blue Ronan’s eyes were, up close.

He couldn’t seem to take away the fact that Ronan was leaning closer. Or was it Adam?

“Lynch! Parrish!”

They jolted out of whatever trance they were in, not at all surprised when Gansey bounded closer, smile lighting up his features more than the colored lights surrounding them. When Adam looked, they didn’t seem to be any closer than usual.

“That was a fantastic performance,” Gansey commented. Adam saw that he wasn’t even a little disheveled. He had no idea how long the event has been going on, but he knew it can’t have been only been an hour or so. “Helen really loved it. She wants to meet you, Parrish. My mother too.”

Ronan laughed once, powerful and loud and sharp as his smile. “Of course they fucking do. Everyone would want to meet the man, Adam Parrish.”

Adam merely raised a brow, aware of the wry twist to his lips at Ronan’s inadvertent praise. Gansey nodded sagely, possibly unaware or entertaining Ronan’s sarcasm and/or praise.

This was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i actually wrote _Just Pretend_ and it's pretty fucking Bluesey. if y'all are curious about it, hit me up on tumblr.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night Adam got home from the event at the Lyric’s strip, Robert Parrish was awake, drunk, and unapologetically angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: the usual domestic abuse that comes with the parrishes, i guess. with some Thoughts from Adam. if that's like, not your thing, well, idk man.

Nights on the way back, with his feet barely managing to pump the pedals out of exhaustion, were all this: twisting pitch black roads lit with lamps that never provided enough light. On one side was forest, looming and intimidating. On the other were fields of waist-high grass and distant cityscapes that made the vast expanse of the dark skies seem gray, the distant lights of homes and buildings and highways crowding and huddling close in the way stars never did.

Every surface of Henrietta was dusted and old. Adam felt each speck, saw them drifting down from the spotlight of each passing streetlight as he pedaled and pedaled. It was an undersaturated photo of the dark. With every inhale of the cold night air, Adam was reminded of this:

Dust was never visible under the dark cover of the night.

Nights spent in the double w—no, nights spent _home_ like this were spent thinking of everything and anything but being there. Closed in by the peeling wallpapers of his quaint room, anything was possible. Every aching bruise on his stomach was inextinguishable laughter in the backroom of the Lyric, every bleeding cut on his lip was from grinning too hard, and every time his head throbbed—as if it were remembering the slamming of his father’s fist over and over _and over_ —the back of his eyelids showed the night sky, panoramic and infinite. Each of his hurts and aches and stings were eternal reminders of what beauty this world had remaining.

The night Adam got home from the event at the Lyric’s strip, Robert Parrish was awake, drunk, and unapologetically angry. He hadn’t known what had caused the anger this time, but a reflex in his mind was strong enough to tell him not to try and decipher that mystery, that it wasn’t worth it, that he should just let it happen so that it would _stop_.

 _One day_ , Adam thought, after the majority of the senseless beating. Breathing coming in slow and careful, he laid down on his bed, trying to tether himself back to the body that belonged to him.

One day, he could stop calling his father’s fists _home_. One day, he could make himself a living and rescue his mother from his father’s clutches, convince her that every lie his father had told her was all it was. One day, alcohol would just be alcohol, and raised voices were never angry, and pain never came from something he should love.

It had been a long night, and the hours preceding it was a long day at school. He was tired, exhausted, but Adam could never sleep.

Watching the shadows of his ceiling, he thought of millions and millions of ways that the events of the night after the festivities could have been avoided, could have gone without blood and bruises. A twist in the narrative could change the outcome, he’d learned in English Lit that day. Mr. Milo had taught well, keeping his interest at all times. A change in the character’s intentions, a change in the thought process of the perspective character, perhaps, could change the outcome of certain situations presented in the timeline.

But with every change in demeanor, choice of words, manner of speaking; whether he fought back or kept his mouth shut, he could never avoid it. The fists were inevitable, as were the words aimed to prick and hurt him

Despite having endured all of this in his life, he couldn’t help the surge of feeling in his gut, the sensation enough push the breath out of his lungs. His eyes welled with tears, anger making him clench his fists. The anger, it was everything and nothing; it pulled him back into his body and pushed him out further into oblivion. His mind ran a mile a minute, abandoning the hopeless, regretful train of thought of trying to appease the beast that was his father.

It was the unfairness of it all, the shameful feeling of guilt that pressed in despite the fact that, objectively, he knew that he had done nothing to anger his father that made him sob into his sheets that night. His mind and heart yearned at the events before arriving home, thought of Ronan’s smile when he sang on the stage.

His heart clenched painfully, from both want and the residue of anger.

A wheel turned in his head.

He had to tell.

* * *

 

“Ronan?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Adam was forced to acknowledge his surroundings, the afternoon sun beating down his back, the wail of cicadas from the nearby tree line. Saturdays involved the congregation of cars in the parking lot of the market near Antietam Lane, exhausting fumes from turned off engines, making the air unbearable even though Adam stood far from the lot, hand clutching the telephone receiver.

An idle part of his mind ticked off the seconds, his free hand fidgeting with the coins he left on top of the phone.

Adam scratched at the back of his head, ignoring the aches of bruises still healing when his arm stretched too far. He almost forgot to listen, almost didn’t catch the response on the other end of the line. He was a caught by a single panicked thought, that maybe he’d grabbed the wrong number from the contacts at Aglionby.

But it was, sure enough, Ronan’s voice that he’d almost missed, saying, “Are you okay?”

 _I don’t know_ , Adam wanted to say. He should know. He’d been through countless nights like the one before. In fact, he’d been beaten worse. One time, there was an ambulance involved, one that Adam’s mother didn’t call for. No matter the case of previous beatings, the fact stood that before Adam had been beaten last night, Adam had been so happy that he forgot that he even came from the horribleness of his home. He’d been foolish enough to forget.

He took a deep breath. Was he okay? Ronan was prudent enough to know that Adam wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t a big deal so he said the truth:

“No.”

He took another deep breath.

 Ripping it off like a band-aid would help. If Ronan were this honest with him, this worried for him, worried enough to stop acting for Adam’s pride and ask after him, Adam would want to tell the truth too. An eye for an eye.

He asked, “I want to talk about something. Face-to-face. Can you come meet me at my place?”

Silence.

He took another deep breath. His ribs started aching two deep breaths ago, but he couldn’t stop lest he stopped breathing altogether.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

* * *

 

Adam didn’t count the ten minutes down. He sat in the backyard of the double wide, petting the neighbor’s dog with one hand. He sat with his back leaned against the Honda Civic and looked out at the oversaturated colors of the sky.

A tongue licked at his palm, a paw pushing at his thigh. Adam turned to give the dog his whole attention, a small quirk by the edge of his lips. Then, the dog started barking, jumping happily up and down. Adam didn’t laugh but he came close to it. A shadow cast the world in a significantly dimmer light.

Adam looked up.

The sky did nothing but shine just a tad bit brighter than usual, so the silhouette remained a silhouette, not permitting Adam to make out details to this shadow. But he knew the set of those shoulders, knew those eyes that were obscured by shadow, knew the owner of the scent of wheat grass and moss.

Ronan took a deep breath.

“You’re not okay.”

Adam didn’t hide his face, didn’t hide the waver of his tone when he said, “No. I told you I wasn’t.”

Ronan sat down, facing Adam, ignoring the yapping dog that tried to get his attention. Near enough for it to make out, Adam saw how Ronan’s eyes were a cold gray slate, his brows concerned, his mouth a thin line. Adam had never seen Ronan like this, so open with his vulnerable concern.

Adam found that he wasn’t mad about the concern. He had expected it.

Adam didn’t count the ten minutes down because he was expecting _this_ : the concern that couldn’t be shuttered back into a blank look, so wrong and open on Ronan’s face. There was a question in the air, in the way Ronan’s gaze settled on him—on his face—as warm as a blanket.

The answer was simple and complicated, its own sweet little contradiction. Ronan hadn’t asked what was wrong once he’d arrived. He’d done it on the phone already. Ronan hadn’t asked what they were going to talk about. He would always wait ‘til Adam could say it, lay it out between them. With concern, with confusion, with an emotion Adam wasn’t used to, Ronan’s gaze and posture had asked, _Who did this to you?_

 _Rip it off like a band-aid,_ he told himself.

Adam’s voice cracked when he said, “My father.”

See, Adam was planner, a stickler for rules and details. He had contingencies and laid his trust on certain variables he could rely on. Human emotions were easy with buildup and bias, he observed these quite often.  When he answered that question, he expected a great deal, prepared his courage beforehand. The possibilities weren’t endless.

Perhaps Ronan would have coddled him—an attribute obviously inherited from Aurora— grasped at Adam’s face and searched for any more places that hurt.

Perhaps Ronan would have wound himself up, snarled, hunted down Adam’s father and beaten him—just like Adam had been beaten the night before— a thrilling hero to the story that Adam always wanted to take lead of.

Perhaps Ronan would have ignored all this entirely, told Adam of the things that happened after he left the previous night, like nothing was really wrong, like he’d been doing for as long as their friendship got serious.

But the thing about Ronan Lynch is that no one really expects him to stick to a plan. These assumptions were bound for failure, and Adam knew it but couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

Ronan reached up, hand too close to Adam’s face, fingers barely touching him. Adam didn’t wince. He trusted Ronan.

“Did you use cold compress?”

Adam wasn’t surprised that Ronan would ask about his welfare but he wasn’t expecting it like this either. Something warm spread beneath his chest, fond and exasperated and light. It ached like pain. He wanted it out, but he wanted it there. “Yes, I did.”

Ronan put his hand down, looking Adam in the eye. Adam resisted smoothing out the crease of concern on Ronan’s forehead.

“For how long?”

“Five on, five off. Then again for fifteen minutes. Then I went to bed. Okay?”

It seemed he was satisfied with this answer because he settled down next to Adam, leaning back on the Civic.

This annoyed him, for reasons he couldn’t understand himself. How dare Ronan Lynch, the audacity of him to come here and not ask the wrong questions, to not anger Adam with his entitled opinions. How dare Ronan Lynch bring him food too, which Adam now noticed because of the neighbor’s dog’s silence. How dare Ronan Lynch.

“That it?” asked Adam, perfectly aware of how hostile he sounded. What did Ronan do to deserve hostility like this? “No other questions? Nothing about why I got _this_ from my father? Or why I’m only telling you now?”

Ronan roused at this, mouth opening to protest but he held his tongue, which pleased Adam, shamefully. What was wrong with him? There was a crease on Ronan’s brow, less concern, more aggravation. Adam didn’t want to admit that he liked it there more than the concern.

“What the hell?” Ronan said, echoing Adam’s thoughts, “Do you want me to shoot questions around like I have the right to butt into your shit just because we’re friends?”

This aggravated Adam further. His frustration was implacable now, not yet the on-off anger he’d inherited from his father. “No,” he said, and his voice was croaky with disuse and dehydration. He was confused. Where was he going with this?

“Then what, Adam?” came Ronan’s equally frustrated but gentler question.

Adam took a deep breath. “No, but—it’s hard not to _like you_ , when you’re like this. Like you’ve known, like you understand completely and you’re giving me enough leave to be secretive about it. It’s hard to be honest about something when you don’t even try to ask about it. Am I not interesting enough? Why don’t you ask about it? I’ll tell you, you know that, right?”

That wasn’t it either, but Adam was willing to continue being frustrated, willing to feel the enveloping feeling of anger in place of the confusion. Why was he being so difficult?

Ronan huffed, leaning his elbows on his knees. His shoulders were confident, defiant, everything Adam wasn’t. His mouth was rueful, smirking but not cruel. “Alright then,” he retorted, laughter in his voice but weariness in his eyes. Adam found that he’d encountered this before, at Borden house. “What the fuck, Adam, do you get off being your own man? Do you like having to earn money to move out? Adam, why do you go to Aglionby when you could go straight to college because you’re so smart?”

It was sarcastic, it was edgy. Ronan’s tone was nonchalant, indulging Adam’s frustration, but it was genuine. Ronan never lied when he spoke. The questions smarted, but didn’t sting. There was a compliment to be seen in there. There was respect in some of it. But most of all, it all rang true.

Adam was silent a moment, then, “Dad beats me up all the time.”

This wasn’t what Ronan was talking about. This wasn’t what Ronan wanted. But Adam wanted to tell Ronan, to hell with what Ronan wanted now that Adam had set his mind on something. It was like ripping off a band-aid, he told himself, but the scab came off with the motion and now the scar started bleeding again. Ronan tensed but stayed silent, his face going blank.

Satisfied, Adam continued, “I used to think it was pretty obvious to you, that he did that. That it would be okay not to tell you, that I could always walk into work feeling sore from home, that it would be okay to walk into the Lyric hiding the evidence. You, Mrs. Lynch, Matthew, everyone always saw what I wanted them to see.”

Admitting this was like pulling weeds from the dirt: the rest always came with, even the unwanted parts, the intentions behind his past actions, the world shifting in Ronan’s eyes. They only ever saw what Adam wanted them to see because he wanted it to be gradual, natural. He didn’t want pity or concern, he wanted acceptance, trust that Adam would let himself out of this situation. Put that way, it was selfish.

“Adam,” Ronan started to say, but Adam cut him off.

“I should have just told you. It would have been easier on the both of us. You were always trying to side-step it, you were doing it just now.”

Ronan never lied when he spoke, so he said, “Yeah, I was. But no, it wouldn’t have made it easier on the both of us if you told me earlier on.”

He was not wrong.

The sound of paper being crinkled brought their attention elsewhere. Elsewhere being on the neighbor’s dog, who was now eating the food that Ronan brought. Together, they watched it eat, conscious of the fact that they were not speaking anymore.

Briefly, Adam remembered the previous night, the moment backstage broken off by Gansey. The sensations of happy exhaustion was stark in his mind, the soreness of his throat, the cooling sweat pooling at the small of his back, the press of Ronan’s knee on his, Ronan’s shoulder on his.

Briefly, Adam remembered that he was still wearing Ronan’s old shirt.

Briefly, Adam saw that they were doing it again. They were shoulder to shoulder, leaning up against the Civic, sitting on the dirt, in the dark. They were two boys, two positions in society, two equals.

Adam took a deep breath, then let out a loud sigh. This one didn’t hurt.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam walked out of the Lyric and cycled back to his broken home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol, i haven't updated in a while. thanks to all the nice comments and asks in my inbox!

“I think it’d be prudent for both companies present if you took that back, Wesley,” Gansey said sweetly, politely. The words churned Adam’s stomach more than the sweetness in Gansey’s tone, the tone that suggested just how pissed off he really was and how little he was willing to let this go easily. It wasn’t that he feared Gansey’s anger. No, he grew up around more destructive shows of that ugly emotion.

Currently, they were at Nino’s, two pizza platters half-eaten in front of them. Noah was hunched next to Adam, nervously jostling his leg underneath the table. The older boy couldn’t take his eyes off of the person Gansey was speaking to, which was a sign that he was weary. Adam couldn’t even look anywhere above Gansey’s shirt collar, which was a sign that he was emitting so much emotion that Ronan could probably feel it from across the table.

Said boy sat imperiously in his seat, his sharp features sharper than usual, and his eyes menacing and fiercely defensive. The confident set to his shoulders showed tension that was akin to him winding up for a fight with Declan, but it still seemed deceivingly at ease. Blue, across the room, no doubt held the same stance and posture as she attended to a couple at another table.

What had happened was this: Adam biked to the Lyric the morning after he and Ronan talked, gave lessons to students, got a quick warm-up/practice from Ronan, then they both promptly got kicked out by Niall, who said that they could—no, _should_ have lunch, preferably outside where he couldn’t hear them both laugh at another stupid joke. Ronan reluctantly let go of the fort with one final exasperated look at Niall, called the gang, and drove to Nino’s without further incident.

The incident, instead, came to them after getting to Nino’s.

Nino’s Pizzeria was known to all Aglionby boys as a rite of passage, however stupid that may sound. If a group wanted pizza, they would go to Nino’s. If a group didn’t want to eat anything served to them on a silver platter, they would plaster themselves to the sticky leather seats of the cheap retro diner, order iced tea, and gorge themselves full with grease.

(The logic, however flawed and exclusionary as Blue may put it, was nevertheless followed because every other weekend, the boys and Blue would somehow end up at Nino’s. The fact that Blue worked there helped, not with discounts, but with reasons to come for afterschool hang-outs.)

When Noah and Gansey stopped to chat with Blue as they pretended to consider options on the menu, Adam took the chance to hover a hand by Ronan’s elbow, enough to tell him that they could just walk off without the other three noticing. Succeeding in this, they secured a booth in the back.

Ruckus erupted as yet another group of Aglionby boys entered the restaurant, and Adam saw that it was the crew team. He watched as the boys greeted Noah and Gansey jovially, watched as Gansey and Noah walked towards their booth still trailed by the rambunctious sports group, and with dread, Adam watched as they did not stop conversing once Noah and Gansey were seated.

The captain of the crew team, Wesley Ford (dearly close to the captain of the swim team, Noah Czerny) approached their table as his teammates left him in favor of a booth. When Ford’s green eyes landed on Adam, he smiled and humorously told Gansey, “I didn’t know your mom was involved in charity cases as of recent, Three.”

Then silence, and then Gansey and everyone else reacted.

Adam was perfectly aware of how flushed he must seem. Blood rushed, deafening, in his ears. Anger was quick to follow these symptoms and after yesterday’s conversations with Ronan, he didn’t want it brought up any sooner.

He couldn’t think. Not with those green eyes judging him minutely, Ford turning Gansey’s polite words in his head, calculating.

He couldn’t think. Not with Ronan’s gaze eventually landing on him, heavy and seeking Adam’s. He dreaded the thought of meeting it.

He couldn’t think. So instead of thinking, he did something about it.

“I don’t need you to defend me,” Adam said to Gansey, finally meeting the other boy’s eyes. Blue eyes met hazel, and Gansey’s lips stretched to a thin line as he nodded and averted his gaze. From across the table, he could see Gansey’s knuckles whiten as his hands drew into fists.

Then, with much difficulty, Adam lifted his chin to meet Ford’s gaze. His mind was deceivingly blank, and it was enough to set the pace of confusion and panic. Carefully, kept his eyes on Ford’s, didn’t look away. He was aware of how unnerving it was to watch someone like this, and he was aware just how unnerved Ford was getting with each second that passed.

After a moment, Ford took a step back, huffed, said, “Whatever…”

Adam tracked him as he made his way across the room, and after Ford slipped into his seat with his teammates, Adam went back to staring at the ice cubes melting in his glass. Beside him, Noah laughed into his palm. Adam found himself smiling at that.

* * *

 

There was a minimum of three times that Gansey met Adam’s eyes in every conversation they had after that weekend, and considering how liberal Gansey was with the eye contact when they first met, Adam was aware that he was the cause of this.

It was easy to rule out if Adam was jumping to conclusions by observing the others. Noah was normal, with his manic grin and constant movement. Matthew was normal, with his dimpled smiles and loud laughter. Blue was normal, with her snide remarks and odd anecdotes. Ronan was… well, he was Ronan, with his shoulder pressed against Adam’s and his fierce eyes as he played random songs on whatever instrument he had his hands on.

Gansey was the least normal. He was a muted, lackluster version of the Gansey Adam knew. Their conversations lacked any of the historical anecdotes and hearty, infectious laughter. If it weren’t for the fact that Ronan always had to snap Gansey out of his thoughts for his opinion on something, Adam would have thought that he was the only one noticing Gansey’s odd behavior.

Adam decided to confront someone about it.

“D’you think maybe it’s ‘cause I told him not to defend me?” Adam asked Blue as he helped her pull out the weed in Mrs. Anderson’s garden. They would share the pay on this one, however minimal old Henrietta ladies would pay to get their gardens and front lawns tended by two teenagers. (Earlier, he was informed that Mrs. Anderson’s preferred payment was cookies, and he couldn’t really argue with that.)

Blue grabbed the trowel and started digging up at the loose soil beside Adam. “I don’t think anything. Matter of fact: he used to do that with me too, but he never reacted this way when I brushed him off.”

Adam scowled, grunting with the effort as the weed finally came away, pulling away the other weeds rooted next to it.  Blue made a small noise at the mess as she observed further away, but didn’t comment on it. Adam plucked them off the ground. “Maybe it’s because you two’re dating.”

Blue hummed in acknowledgement, turning back to her work.

“And I mean,” Adam started, not the least bit discouraged by her dismissal. “Why would he react that way? If he’s dealt with it with you, and he’s dealing with his… y’know, about it, then why is it such a surprise with me?”

Blue didn’t respond this time, which wasn’t really a stretch considering there were things even Blue Sargent doesn’t know about her boyfriend. Other than her focus on her work, Adam’s question was a bit on the rhetorical kind. Adam wondered if Blue was letting herself be a sounding board for his thoughts.

Blinking, he stared at what he’d done, noted the disarray of the pulled out weeds. He stared at his jeans, ruined and muddy. He stared at his gloved hands, the distance of each finger from each other. At present, he was in the middle of Mrs. Anderson’s lawn, a boy with hair the color of the dirt in front of him, staring at his hands. His mind was slowly running in circles. It felt like he was making progress but really he was just coming back to the same conclusions. It just didn’t make sense.

Similarities: Blue and Adam weren’t wealthy; both had to work for their daily income. Blue and Adam were Ronan, Noah, Matthew, and Gansey’s friends. Blue and Adam were both interested in music.

The only difference between Blue and Adam being..? Gender? The instruments they played? Yes, but they weren’t really connected to Gansey’s hesitance in meeting Adam’s gaze. Specifically to Gansey’s hesitance in meeting Adam’s gaze regarding Adam’s honor.

Then what?

He didn’t know. Not yet.

Frustrated, Adam stood, taking the weeds with him. He tossed them into the wheelbarrow that he and Blue had wrenched out of Mrs. Anderson’s shed earlier. Behind him, he heard skittering and yelped when something bumped him in the knee. When he looked, he saw a dog with a trowel between its teeth, tail wagging so fast the dog’s body shook with the effort.

He leaned down and plucked the thing out of the dog’s mouth, wondered of the dog’s origin as he turned the rusty hilt of the trowel this way and that. Well-used and old, it looked entirely different from the one Blue was holding.

“Oh, neat. Whose dog is that?” This was Blue, who had approached to see what the hold-up was about. Behind her, the lawn was starting to look more like a lawn. In front of her, the dog whined and panted heavily as she patted it on the head.

Adam turned to Blue, holding out the trowel, “Mrs. Anderson’s, I think. Or the neighbor’s. Took their dirty trowel though.”

Blue’s mouth quirked up at the sides, “I’m pretty sure that trowel’s been buried for a long time.” She took it regardless, turning it this way and that, like Adam had, as if it were some antique instead of some gardening tool that had been supposedly buried.

Whatever tests Blue was running in her head, the item seemed to have proven worthy of them. She nodded then said, “Alright, I’ll take it. Maybe Persephone would want it. Or Aunt Jimi.”

Adam watched her as she went back to her part of the lawn.

That, he realized, was difference between Blue and him.

Blue loved her home while Adam did not. Though that matter wasn’t at all surprising considering the state of Adam’s family structure, no one, save for Ronan, had known that fact for a long time. It was a secret hidden under the dust.

Whereas Blue’s love for her family was a loud proclamation all over Henrietta, complete with tales of how Blue used to hone her words to tear down any naysayers back in Mountain View Middle and other known locations, Adam’s mix of fear and shame for his own was a whisper out in the night sky.

Adam walked back to his side of the lawn and started burying the seedlings that Blue had prepared.

It was all in the matter of who told Gansey of this difference between Adam and Blue, to make him seem so distracted, so shifty beneath Adam’s gaze. And there was only one possible person who could have done it.

* * *

 

“Did you tell him?” The question was intentionally accusatory, knowing that the other boy wouldn’t react too well.

Adam had not changed out of his stiff, muddied jeans, hadn’t even changed into the shirt he had in his bag. Once he cycled over to the Lyric after Blue and his job, he decided he didn’t care.

The more he had pondered on the possibility of Ronan telling Gansey, the more aggravated he became. It grew enough that Blue had to steal him away from the lawn they were working on before he did more damage than good. She asked what was wrong but Adam wasn’t willing to tell. Not like Ronan had been.

Ronan didn’t react. He kept his head down, listening to the tone of each string as he adjusted the new strings on his guitar. Like Adam hadn’t just accused him of anything, he said, “You’d have to be more specific.”

There was a hollow in Adam’s chest that rang as he watched Ronan’s feigned nonchalance. Though the roar of blood in his ears were missing, replaced by the sound of the Lyric’s loud air-conditioning running in the background, Adam felt the slight shaking of his hands and the clenching of his jaw.

His voice was empty when he said, “You told Gansey, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t a question anymore. Not even an accusation, not really. It was just fact, irreversible and true.

Ronan finally reacted, but only enough to raise his eyes from where he was tuning his guitar, blue eyes sharp. It lacked the note of shock or anger that Adam wanted present there. That was an answer. This silence was enough of an answer.

As he raked his eyes all over Ronan’s face in search of anything he could find that would calm his nerves, he noted the lack of regret.

Adam took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Ronan said, “He doesn’t know who hurt you, only that you have been. He’s only zoning out because he thinks—”

“Because he thinks what, Ronan?” Adam’s eyes were open, his vision tunneling. There were still no telltale signs of the familiar loud anger in his veins. His voice sounded clear and horrible against the lack of noise in his head. “Because he thinks that I want to fight my battles because I always lose?”

That wasn’t it, clearly it wasn’t. Ronan was calm, and it spurred Adam’s anger further.

“Why are you angry, Adam?”

Adam swallowed, his throat dry and sore. His arms froze, and his hands stopped shaking.

“I don’t know.” The _not yet_ could have easily followed but Adam didn’t know if he wanted to know.

Ronan gazed at him, searching, not concerned but caring and soft. It tore Adam apart. His voice was gruff, as it always was, but it was small when he said, “I won’t tell anyone unless you give me the green signal.”

But that wasn’t why Adam was angry.

Adam walked out of the Lyric and cycled back to his broken home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _what kind of ending was that sj_
> 
> idk either man, adam's his own man, i'm just as confused as he is. jokes aside, i'd appreciate comments on that! is adam too hasty? how would ronan react? ~~talk to me god, i'm so desperate~~
> 
> [reblog the tumblr link and i will love your 5ever]()


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He felt like such an ingrate.

There were a lot of things in the world that Adam Parrish couldn’t control.

For one, he could never control time. Time to process much of his thoughts, time to plan out his next moves, time to earn enough money, time to be legal and move out on his own volition and never look back. It kept him up some nights, his mind not lulled to slumber by every tick of the seconds passing by and all the seconds yet to pass.

For another, Adam never had the luxury of leisure, always on the clock or off it, his time with his friends scheduled until the last possible second before he had to go to work. Some days, his time out with friends took a turn for the ornery, internally and bitterly telling Gansey and Noah and Ronan and Matthew and Blue,  _I could be at work earning money, but I am here with all of you. Be grateful_. 

Lastly, he simply couldn’t control his emotions, blaming enough of his anger on his father though deep down he knew that he was the only one who could really control whatever emotion he had, blaming the guilt on his anger, then his anger on himself, an endless cycle of hatred that overwhelmed him in the times he couldn't use music to distract himself. 

Another could be that, though Adam had awful, _awful_  days when his mind and logic were barely enough to keep him grounded, he couldn't just turn off his harsh realities for even a second to take a break: work, school, enough hours at home to keep his parents at bay.

So, in typical manner, Adam Parrish went to school the morning after he walked out of the Lyric, pretending like he wasn’t completely devastated by what he’d done, what kind of shambles he’d left his and Ronan’s friendship in the day before. What was more was that, when Adam walked into Latin, because Latin wasn’t the first class in his schedule, wasn’t the first class he shared with his friends, he was completely aware of Ronan’s absence and it was _gnawing at him,_ distracting him.

He sat down in his usual seat, gazing determinedly at the front of the class as if that could somehow fix the lack of Ronan, watched as Whelk painstakingly wrote down all the declensions they’d have to learn on the board. Ronan was missing and it was wrong. His skin crawled with the absence. It felt like a part of him was missing, and it felt awful because he was part of the reason why in the first place.

Five minutes before the Aglionby bells rang and classes resumed between the boys milling about outside, Gansey walked in, greeted Whelk, and made a beeline for Adam’s seat, his stride confident, shoulders taut with tension.

Adam couldn’t say he was surprised by these turn of events. Actually, he kind of thought Gansey might have confronted him in the halls. But regardless of the venue or the time, he knew it was bound to have happened at some point that day.

Careful not to ignore the greetings threw his way, Gansey kept a smile up, waving off some other students when they slapped him on the shoulder. It took him a considerable amount of time before he made it to Adam’s seat. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“What did you say to him?”

The question was non-specific and loaded, full of whatever anger Gansey felt like swallowing and letting go to the surface. Adam met his gaze straight on, didn’t flinch or wince with the accusation and suggestion of it. The look in Gansey’s eyes was something fierce and authoritative, and something in Adam smarted when he looked Gansey in the eye.

He’d hurt Ronan, and though he wasn’t completely oblivious of it, it didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t guilty or ashamed.

The time for an answer lapsed, and this let some more anger to the surface of Gansey’s usual collected façade.

“I’m aware that you have special needs, Adam Parrish.” He walked and sat down on the seat Ronan usually occupied. His voice was deep and threatening, so far from the usual Gansey’s jovial and chummy tone. “In fact, I’m aware that Ronan wants to give you these special needs, but whatever you told him yesterday, or the day before that, it’s enough to make him burrow inside himself, not tell me anything about it, and call in sick today, and I would like to know what and why you told him any of it.”

The sick feeling in Adam’s gut churned, making him sicker. He couldn’t argue with Gansey’s logic. If Adam were Ronan, he would call in sick too, would avoid Adam after what he’d been accused of, would never speak to Adam again. But, Adam was not Ronan. He couldn’t afford to call in sick just because he cornered himself into a dead end, he couldn’t afford to tie his emotional state to his physical state when the latter was perfectly fine.

Adam let his gaze fall away from the front of the class, met Gansey’s hazel-colored contacts. Adam let himself be uncomfortable, be unnerved by Gansey’s unusual forwardness.

Adam let himself tell the truth. “Whatever he told you,” he heard himself say. He fell short of completing the thought. With some effort, he repeated, “Whatever he told you that made you not want to look at me, we talked about it. I’ll admit, a lot of what I implied was wrong, but I suggest you let me handle it.”

The bells rang.

* * *

 

Adam grabbed the handle to his locker and stared inside the pristine contents. Adam kept an image where his locker had none, and it was a reminder. He was not in Aglionby to express his individuality. He was in Aglionby to get good grades and get an easy chance at running away from Henrietta.

He could hear Gansey’s gait in the thinning crowd of the halls, he could feel his bones press tightly against the skin of his knuckles. When he heard Gansey stop behind him, pause to breathe in, open his mouth to say something, Adam slammed the locker door.

Unsatisfied, Adam opened the locker again, slammed it shut again. He did this twice. When he stopped, he was hyper-aware of his breathing, ragged and heavy, as if he’d been running. He felt like he had been.

When he turned, his chest felt heavy but empty. Gansey stared at him, disbelieving and only a little bit annoyed. Adam felt his face muscles twist, knew that he was smirking even though he felt like he was breaking.

He stared at Gansey, and Gansey didn’t back down. A bitter part of his mind thought, _So_ now _you look at me_.

“Let me fucking handle it and I will.”

Then Adam was gone.

* * *

 

Adam had work at the trailer factory on Mondays. He tried to convince himself that that was why he wasn’t currently at the Lyric or wherever Ronan was, asking for forgiveness, but he was failing miserably. The guilt was eating him up, a parasite in his brain.

At half-time, Adam forced down a banana and three cups of cold water from the dispenser, reminding himself that it was enough to keep his hunger at bay, that it was hunger making his stomach ache in the first place. He was acutely aware that he was in a daze, and that anyone could call him out on his behavior, that he could injure himself he didn’t snap out of it and he couldn’t really afford getting off the job that paid him well enough.

He couldn’t seem to snap out of it though.

“…and I couldn’t believe my eyes! I mean, I was banking on seeing a few of the brats down at that prep school but I didn’t even recognize our own boy right here until he was backstage.” There was some shuffling. Adam stared down at the notes he’d brought with him, unable to process what he was hearing and seeing at the same time. He saw at the margin of his own notes some words he could recognize as a poem.

 _Sev’ral minutes at a time,_  
_Feelin’ of your eyes catch on mine_  
 _Sev’ral minutes at a time,_  
 _Feelin’ hours passing by_

A hand came down to pat his shoulder, not entirely forceful but enough to make Adam jump out of his skin. He turned to see the thinning salt and peppered hair he’d come to identify as Mike’s, the older man holding a phone in his other hand. Adam squinted to see what it was on Mike’s phone and found that it was Noah's younger sister's shaky recording of the open mic event.

A whistle came up from behind Mike. Adam found the origin and knew the crop of blond hair to be Leon’s. “We didn’t even get to come to your first concert, son,” Leon said, his tone apologetic but still loud. “We would have cheered the loudest.”

Adam huffed, a small laugh in its own right, “Thank you, sir.”

Mike and Leon let out their belly laughs, friendly and familiar. Ben, who was only three years older than Adam, popped in from behind the younger boy. “Say, when’s your next gig? Think we can get to that?”

The men prodded Adam with these questions good-naturedly. Adam found himself genuinely smiling for the first time that day, grateful of his co-workers in the trailer factory, happy that people had appreciated his music with Ronan.

_Ronan._

He’d given Adam this. He’d given Adam music, piano lessons for friendship, his first guitar so that Adam would stay, the Barns for some form of contentment, the locker box for security. Ronan had given Adam all of that and more and… Just because Ronan didn’t want Gansey to worry about Adam in a way that…

Oh, god. What had he done?

“I’ll have to ask Ronan myself,” Adam replied honestly. His eyes felt hot when he blinked, and his vision was only slightly blurry when he blinked again. “Right now, if I could.” Adam could feel heat streaming down his cheeks and knew that he was crying. He felt like such an ingrate. He felt like he could hurl his cup of water across the room.

What had he done?

Mike and Leon gave each other panicked, confused looks, like they didn’t know if they should be concerned and comforting Adam. Ben ruffled his hair from behind, making Adam freeze. “Right on, kiddo. Scram, I’ll take over.”

He blinked. He didn’t turn to look at Ben. Instead, he looked at his feet and started moving. By the doorway, he mumbled, “Thank you.”

* * *

 

He was past the point of running out of breath when he unceremoniously dropped his bike in front of the Lyric. He was aware that he was still wearing the clothes he wore from work, aware that he was practically dripping with sweat, aware that he had that little crazed look in his eyes. Adam felt like he could collapse in exhaustion and anxiety but the need to patch things up was the greater impulse.

He pushed inside the Lyric, hyper-aware of his appearance and the fact that he’d just startled Aurora Lynch from where she was zoning out by the counter. In no time, she was fussing over him, asking him if he was okay, if she could help him with something. Adam was looking for her son’s shaved head and stopped short when he failed. Meeting her eyes, feeling the _need_ emitting from him in waves, he asked, “Ma'am, is Ronan here?”

Aurora paused, her hands midway to touching Adam. Her eyes were wide with shock, her brows furrowing in confusion.  Eventually she nodded, her hands settling down on the counter in front of her as she pushed herself up from her seat. “I’ll go tell him you’re here. Go on and wait, dear.”

Adam let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Thank you, ma—Mrs. Lynch. I’ll be waiting outside.”

So, he stepped out and waited.

He struggled to lean his bike up against the glass-covered front of the store, fiddling with the chains and trying to fix some misaligned notches that were thrown askew when he’d slammed his bike down earlier.

He really ought to take care of his things more, and though usually he does, this whole day was an act of impulse to Adam; every move was his raw reaction to every situation that came at him. Ronan’s absence at school was a sore ache deep in his bones and he felt terrible knowing he’d inflicted it on himself when he raged for no apparent reason.

A bell jingled, the sound of the store door opening and closing. Adam looked at Ronan, and Ronan looked back.

There were only a few seconds inside a minute but Adam felt the eternity of every single one of them as he took Ronan in: the tired look in his eyes, the weathered quality to his features, the wrinkles on his work shirt. He looked rumpled and exhausted, like their fight had drained him of his usual ferocity.

“I’m sorry,” Adam heard him say. Adam shook his head, took a step closer, not wincing when his bike dropped to the ground as he abandoned it. Ronan stared at it, then looked back at Adam. His eyes were pleading. “I shouldn’t have told Gansey.”

Adam bristled at that. A part of his mind agreed with Ronan, but Adam didn’t come here to lay blame on the wrong person. “I should be the one saying sorry. We both know I didn’t really understand why I reacted that way.” The admission sounded stilted, unpracticed.

Ronan didn’t react, seemed to shutter back into himself with that damned blank look on his face, and Adam wanted to shout. He curled his hands into fists and let his nails leave crescent-shaped indentations on the skin. It grounded him enough to keep his breathing steady.

“When I told you, I didn’t exactly tell you not to tell anyone else. It’s not something I should’ve hidden and,” he took a deep breath, “I’m—I don’t know what came over me, Ronan, accusing you of...  You didn’t, and I reacted like you did and I’m _sorry_ , Ronan, I just—I don’t know how to…” He couldn’t finish the thought, aware even then that his clumsy words were futile against the walls that Ronan had put up between them.

He didn’t know why he’d been mad at Ronan, why he’d been so upset when he knew perfectly well that Gansey and Ronan were the kind of friends that told each other everything. Ronan should never have felt the need to stay away for whatever temper tantrum Adam had thrown.

Why couldn’t he just say that?

He squeezed his eyes shut to try and banish the thoughts, and when he opened them, he found his vision dampened with tears.

Ronan stepped closer, his face still horribly blank. His face held shadows that stood stark against the glow that the neon red lights from the sign of the Lyric. Adam found that he’d misread the expression on Ronan’s face as blank, that it was really actually uncertainty, hesitance. His tears grew close to overflowing as he observed this.

Adam felt his face flush, his breathing quickened, his shoulders touch his ears as he clenched his fists tight by his sides. Ronan closed the space between them, taking one last step, and Adam found comfort in the smell of Ronan surrounding him from every angle, moss and wheat grass strong in the warmth of Ronan’s arms around him. It took moments before he could find enough strength to wrap his own arms around Ronan, clutching at the back of the black shirt like he’d fall apart if he so much as loosened his grip.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered between sobs growing louder, wrenching air from deep inside his lungs. His voice shook as his words grew louder. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Ronan, I’m so sorry. I’m not mad at you. I wasn’t. You can tell everyone, I won’t get mad.”

He could feel Ronan’s hands rubbing circles on his back, and he kept his face hidden in Ronan’s shoulder and just _felt_ everything: the regret, how broken he was, how much he cared for his and Ronan’s friendship, how he’ll have to go home after this, how he never wanted to go home, how much he wanted to just stay in Ronan’s arms, how much he wanted to let Ronan know that it wasn’t his fault.

When his sobs died down, he pulled away from Ronan, wiping tears from his cheeks. When he looked, he saw the damage he’d done to Ronan’s shirt. He was on the brink of saying sorry again, the word teetering on the edge of his tongue, this time looking Ronan in the face, when he saw the trail of tears running down Ronan’s cheeks.

Briefly, he noted how close they were, his hands settled around Ronan’s waist.

Briefly, he noted the way Ronan’s hands clutched at his dirty work shirt.

Briefly, he noted how he wanted to capture this moment and frame it, how soft Ronan looked under the night sky, his face shadowed on one side, the other basking in a red glow, his eyes glossy and brimming with tears unable to escape the clumpy triangles that his eyelashes had become. His lips were parted just a bit and Adam couldn’t look away.

Adam opened his mouth to apologize, again, for causing Ronan to cry, however beautiful it looked, and Ronan leaned down to bury Adam into another hug. His chin was digging into Adam’s shoulder but the warmth was distracting, and so were, Adam thought, Ronan’s biceps. “If you fucking apologize again, I will never let go.”

It wrenched out a laugh from him, shaking them both out of the hug as Ronan startled. Then, they both laughed. Adam felt like they could laugh forever, be this close to each other for longer than tonight. He said, “Don’t tempt me, Lynch,” and felt more than saw Ronan smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sigh this is honestly one of the more stressful chapters. 
> 
> comments are appreciated! you know, that whole dramatic wailing in the comments section doesn't really get old. i'll be responding to the meatier comments so go ahead!
> 
>  
> 
> [ reblog this and spread the love. or not, whatever. ](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/145852025865)


	10. Chapter 10

They spent fifteen minutes just sitting in the idle BMW, staring out at the early morning mist that draped over Aglionby like a curtain. Within a few minutes, the world would pull the curtain up and like magic, students will start filing in.

The sound and atmosphere that was Aglionby awake was like a memory in Adam’s head: boys calling out to each other from across the quad, rambunctious laughter filtering through the dust motes that drifted down through the rays of sunlight that pierced the open halls, car engines loud and boastful and  stereos playing even louder music.

Without all of it, Aglionby held a dream-like quality.

At that moment, the only other students on campus were the ones who lived in the campus dorms and the one that owned the charmingly orange 1973 Camaro.

When Adam’s gut stopped churning, Ronan began shifting restlessly, the sigh of cotton against leather seats loud in their silence. The reassuring tone in Ronan’s voice was just as loud when he asked, “Are you sure about this? He won’t give a fuck if we tell him we fixed it.”

Won’t he? Adam wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to that. He grabbed for the door handle and pushed himself outside before he lost his courage.

They were parked in front of Riverfront, the building that held Aglionby’s indoor swimming pool marking the edge of Aglionby that stationed all the sports-related buildings. With prior knowledge from Ronan, Adam knew that Gansey would be there, exerting the nervous energy pent up from a restless, insomnia-induced night.

The sound of a car door slamming brought him out of any further thoughts. He felt Ronan stand by his side, staring at the entrance of Riverfront as if it were something to be threatened by, hands in his open windbreaker’s pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold morning air that Adam could barely feel against his cheeks. The morning was only beginning to brighten, and in the damp dim morning, they were anonymous boys in a hauntingly old campus.

The inside of Riverfront, once they stepped in, was clean and tiled, each fluorescent light aligned with the one next to it, just as Adam suspected. It held an air of surrealism, cleanliness, and wealth, as did every other building on Aglionby. Briefly glancing at Ronan, Adam wondered if the other boy felt otherwise. It was no secret that this Lynch brother hated the idea of well-organized and excessive learning.

Splashes brought Adam’s head back to the task at hand, cursing himself for becoming so lost in his own thoughts, and he barely managed to steel his nerves just as soon as the inner doors opened before him as Ronan lead the way. Once again, he found himself distracted as the smell of chemicals attacked all of his senses at once.

It served to bring him back to summers at the local pool, with chlorine baking his skin a vicious tan, his skin physically incapable of catching sun burn, much to his relief.  He remembered resting his arms just outside the pool and watching small drops of pool water drip down the side of his arm, which tinted green as the pool  reflected light on his skin.

In a flash, he banished the memory and paused when he saw Gansey, bare save for a pair of swim trunks, sitting by the pool. The sound of dripping was loud when it shouldn’t be.

Adam barely kept his eyes from wandering; it was either on Gansey’s face or in the pool water. He was too aware of rivulets of water glistening under harsh fluorescent lights, making Gansey shine in a way that his usual grace called for. He was too aware that he stood next to Ronan, observing this as if it were a normal occurrence, as if seeing Gansey, wet and bare and just this side of regal and handsome, wasn’t something to be shocked about.

“Gansey,” Ronan’s voice sounded loud too, the reverberations bouncing off every wall. Gansey’s head swiveled at their direction, spraying water against their khaki uniform pants. Ronan hissed, “Watch it,” and it still sounded loud in Adam’s ears.

“Lynch, you’re here,” Gansey sounded surprised, and a little bit relieved. Adam remembered yesterday and sympathized. “What happened yesterday? You never told me why, and you never picked up your phone the rest of the evening.”

Ronan waved him off as if he were dismissing a fly. Adam cleared his throat, his eyes dropping back to Gansey’s face from where he let it stray off to the side to compose himself. _Now or never_ , Adam thought to himself and said, “We took care of it. I’m here to talk about it.”

Gansey finally looked at him, his gaze hardened, his face devoid of any emotion. Adam took it in stride and tried not to dwell too much on it, ignoring the way his stomach churned at the sight.

 

Without further ado, Adam told Gansey everything.

It was hard not to flinch at the truths he let go that morning, the sound of every word echoing back at him, magnifying all of his experiences under the microscope for Gansey to observe and understand. Starting from the day they met, recalling instances of Adam’s winces and limps, to the evening after the open mic event at the Antebellum strip, Gansey’s face progressively got whiter.

“I knew he told you something when you started acting weird. I got defensive because I thought he told you everything,” Adam admitted.

By then, they’d sat down cross-legged beside the pool next to Gansey, Adam facing towards Gansey, and Ronan, behind Adam, with his boots removed and his pant legs rolled up while he dipped his feet into the water. Ronan’s shoulder pressed up against Adam’s back, warm and comforting and grounding. Gansey was staring across the pool, but his thumb was rubbing at his bottom lip and Adam knew he was listening.

Gansey dropped his hand, the resounding slap of palm against thigh was loud inside the building. He looked at Adam then, expression just this side of offended. “So you thought… That’s—Ronan wouldn’t do that,” he said, petulant, like there was no reason for Adam to think that. Adam couldn’t bear to look at him.

“ _I know_ ,” Adam hissed. Ronan’s shoulder pressed more firmly against his back. He took a deep breath and calmed. “I know he wouldn’t. That’s why I said I’d deal with it and I did. _We_ did.”

The silence that followed held, the sound of the water lapping up at Ronan’s shins had a calming effect. Adam barely looked up when Gansey bumped a fist on his knee and said, “I’m glad you took the time to tell me.”

Adam was only marginally glad he did too, but he was glad nonetheless.

When Gansey’s hand didn’t retract, instead settling on Adam’s knee awkwardly, Adam tensed a little. Gansey didn’t seem to notice and said, “And, I’m… sorry for saying you have special needs, man. I was…” He sounded genuinely sorry and pained, but Adam didn’t know if he could forget what Gansey said.

But Adam was about as ready to move on from this as Ronan was, so he didn’t see the reason to stretch the issue further. “It’s okay,” Adam lied, and Gansey looked just as convinced as he sounded.

Overhead, the campus stirred, distant church bells ringing early in the morning. Distantly, Adam heard familiar buzz that was Aglionby awake. Presently, Adam noticed that Gansey was now dry.

How long had they been sitting there, listening to Adam’s truths?

The bells rang.

Gansey stood and walked away, leaving Ronan pressed up against Adam’s back, and his mind in knots of confusion and hope.

* * *

 

“That was a good session,” Noah said, fiddling with his phone as Matthew passed around bottles of water. Adam thanked Matthew as he got his and drank nearly half of it in one go. He almost sighed while drinking as the cold water soothed his throat. Across him, Ronan barely put down his guitar before struggling twist the cap off with one hand. He didn’t get very far from cursing, which made it very hard for Adam not to laugh.

They’d just finished recording a cover of some Beatles song, if only to appease Gansey, who didn’t play any instruments and loved watching all of his friends play instead, and for the gathering internet fanbase Noah had told all of them that they had been slowly accumulating since the open mic event. Adam wasn’t one to complain about that, considering it wasn’t a hassle to him. Every track and video they’d recorded was edited and uploaded by Gansey now anyway, and all Adam had to do was wait for his cues to sing and play.

Blue walked up to Noah and pulled the phone down to her height and away from his face to see the video. From behind them, Gansey grabbed the pen by his ear and scratched something into the margins of the hardbound novel resting on his lap.

This was normal now, Adam reminded himself.

Once Ronan’s students over the summer started going less and started calling off the lessons, all of them would gather at Monmouth instead, the warehouse Gansey lived in, and they would record videos of covers and little songs they made up, have Noah upload them, since the older boy had been the one who told his sister Adele to record them live and upload their first footage on the open mic event anyway. The acoustics of the warehouse, as Ronan had put it, would make for a good place for recording.

Gansey hadn’t seemed to mind when Noah just decided to drive them over in his Mustang, but then again, there was a long list of things that Gansey didn’t seem to mind and Adam will never get used to it.

From the outside, Monmouth Manufacturing was completely unremarkable, and it held enough tire marks to let him know that Ronan frequented the place with his BMW. Inside, it was cavernous, a confusing contradiction of feeling like it was lived in and brand new simultaneously. The pieces of furniture were clustered together at places, and stacks of books were countless and scattered.  It was all genuine and deliberate, and Gansey and Noah decided that combining the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room was a great idea.

Hanging out in a warehouse with a few friends would likely take a long time to lose its novelty.

Adam leaned down to put the bottle on the floor, careful not to set it down near the extension outlet they’d set up for the keyboard. He watched carefully as Blue and Noah talked with the phone held between them, and glanced at Gansey to see if the other boy would react any to his girlfriend and his roommate talking heatedly within each other’s personal space. Gansey didn’t, and Adam couldn’t say he was surprised by that. These days, Gansey barely reacted to things Adam would expect him to.

Gansey had been accommodating to Adam’s presence recently, so much that he kept up all the historical anecdotes and smiles and hearty laughs and such, though both parties knew that Adam never forgave him for his comment about ‘special needs’. Adam wasn’t affronted by it that much anymore anyway. Gansey was human, and one fight wouldn’t be enough to keep Adam away from him, if Adam chose to.

He chose to. If Ronan noticed this tentative thing between his two close friends, he didn’t seem to want to act on it.

It’s been a week since Adam had told Gansey, and not a day passed where he wondered why he didn’t just tell all of his friends at once, and let the whole fiasco blow over, if only to give his fraying nerves a chance to rest. It was perplexing, to say the least.  It was odd for Adam to have people know about his home life, to not to have to bother lying whenever he came in late for hangouts or if he looked particularly ill at school.

For sixteen years, he’d kept up with the guise of being okay, forcing himself to work, to smile, to keep pedaling, keep bruises hidden and limps unnoticed. Lying wasn’t really something he took pride on, but he got good at it, and it became somewhat of a game, spotting lies or omissions in conversations.

He hadn’t known he was bothered by the lying until he had told the truth and felt what it was like to be liberated from a secret.

“You gotta be fucking shitting me,” Blue scoffed, pushing Noah’s arms away, and thus the phone away from their faces, as if to emphasize her frustration. This made Gansey look up and mark his page by closing the book around the pen, but the sudden outburst wasn’t enough to make him want to come over. All eyes landed on Blue as she said, “It’s barely been a week and there’s already, like, thousands of views! How is that—it’s the _only_ video we have that has that much!”

“What?” came Matthew’s disbelieving tone, then the predictable shuffling as the youngest Lynch brother set his bottle of water aside and  approached the pair.

All three of them gathered around Noah’s phone. From this distance, Adam could barely hear the tinny sounds of music coming out from between Noah’s clutches.  Matthew laughed, loud and cheerful as he always was, shaking out of Blue and Noah’s cluster as he did so. “Adam, who’d you diddle for all these views?”

Ronan made a disapproving noise, throwing a glare at Matthew as he slid a hand over the strings of his guitar. “Watch your fucking language, Matty,” he grumbled. Adam and Matthew both grinned at this.

“What’s this about?” Adam asked and instantly felt Ronan’s petulant stare land on the side of his head, the other boy no doubt disapproving of Adam’s willingness to let Matthew’s ‘cursing’ slide. Blue looked up from Noah’s phone, throwing a similar glare in Adam’s direction, but for wholly different reasons.

“Your cover of _Unsteady_ has about thirty-five hundred views and half as much likes,” Matthew replied for her, parting from Noah and Blue so that he could cross the room to grab his violin from where he put it down on the chair between Adam and Ronan. He neatly avoided Ronan’s attempts at swiping at him.

“You’re famous, Adam,” Noah remarked, looking absolutely delighted, the polar opposite of Blue’s fierce mock-glaring.

The statistics held in his head, and though the amount of views was great, they weren’t that impressive to Adam. His co-workers from the trailer factory had begun asking about venues and gigs and the like, and Adam just told them that they would be uploading videos instead, since school wasn’t out yet. He wouldn’t be surprised if Mike, Leon, and Ben have been spreading word of it somehow, so all he could do was nod and say, “Alright.”

Blue took some offense to this, but knowing her, it wasn’t too serious. She scoffed. “’ _Alright_ ’? What do you mean, ‘alright’, about most of the population of Henrietta has watched you sing a broody X Ambassadors song on the internet!”

He couldn’t help but laugh when Blue threw a pillow at him when he just raised a brow at this. Gansey squawked, protesting about not throwing pillows that came from his bed. In response, Blue grabbed another pillow and threw it at the couch’s general direction.

Adam laughed when it fell to the floor and Gansey could only muster a disappointed look for thirty seconds before laughing too.

Everything was alright.

* * *

 

Except when it wasn’t.

“I need to tell them, Ro,” Adam muttered, his face trapped in the crook of his arms, his body bent over the counter. Ronan sat next to his head, completely ignored by Chester, Adam’s co-worker, who was currently outside on a smoke.

Currently, the store was empty, and even though it was ten thirty on a school night, Ronan refused to leave. For the first few days, this had concerned Adam, no matter the conflicted feelings of wanting Ronan to stay and chat with him since he and Chester weren’t on very friendly terms. His concerns were ignored though, and he’d come to accept that brand of Lynch stubbornness met by his own.

“And I need to do my homework,” Ronan responded wryly, “but you don’t see me doing that, now do you.”

"That's because you refuse to do it."

"That's the point."

Adam tensed against the counter, his breath leaving him all at once. He pushed himself off the counter, entirely aware of the fact that Chester could walk in on this discussion at any moment and entirely uncaring of that fact. He looked at Ronan and found Ronan looking back, didn't look away as Adam continued to stare at him head-on, didn't lean away as Adam straightened from his position, hands spread wide on the countertop, their fingers almost touching, close but not close enough.

"What—you think I don't want to tell them?" Adam asked, sounding just this side of hostile. His voice didn't sound horrible but there was a familiar rumble beneath his skin, the potential for anger expanding in his chest with every second that passed between the question and the response.

This was entirely uncalled for and Ronan knew it.

Ronan raised a brow at him, forcefully challenging, face deceivingly blank of other emotions. Adam knew that look and the uncertainty that it hid. Actually, the memory, though already weeks old, was as fresh as a bruise still blooming on the side of his cheek. It had yet to heal.

Anger was within reach but Adam did not want it anywhere near him when Ronan had that look about him. Repeating the incident from a week ago was a nightmare that haunted him more frequently than his father’s fists, and he didn’t want that.

"I think you're denying the fact that you don't want them pitying you," Ronan retorted, his voice as steady as his gaze.

The statement struck a nerve. He heard the truth but that didn't mean he was inclined to believe it. He rolled his eyes, scorn dripping from every deliberate action as he leaned away from the counter to glance away for a second. Ronan's uncertainty grew more visible as he fiddled with the leather bands at his wrist, but he kept his eyes firmly on Adam.

Adam looked away. Instead, he considered the thought, staring at the circular mirror at the far end corner of the store.

It was true, because with Ronan it was always true. Adam didn't want his friends to pity him, didn't want them to think he was weak or incapable of happiness or anything. He didn't want them to think of him any lesser than what they think of him now: the smart one who always hung out with their odd group.

Ronan shuffled on the counter, swinging his feet, kicking the wood below with the heels of his boot-clad feet. There was a beat there, a steady tempo. There was always something musical about Ronan Lynch.

"They won't, you know," Ronan muttered. Adam turned to look at him again, and found Ronan still looking back. "Pity you, I mean."

Adam felt himself believe Ronan, but he refused to let Ronan see it. "How would you know?"

Ronan was still looking. His heavy gaze was not as unnerving as Adam thought it would be, when he thought about looking at Ronan when Adam knew he was looking. It felt like giving a secret to someone he trusted. "I won't lie to you,” Ronan said, though Adam already knew that. Ronan always told the truth.

Chester chose that as the perfect moment to enter the store, reeking of nicotine as he passed by with a, "Off the counter, kid. You won't be the one getting fired if you don't."

Ronan flipped him off but hopped off the counter without another word. This time, when he glanced at Adam, Adam was already looking.

* * *

 

On a normal Saturday at the Lyric when Matthew, Noah, and Blue were there to try and compose and write a new song. From whatever chords they were throwing over their shoulders for Adam to play, it was perfectly easy to identify that it was one of Noah’s.

After knowing them for a few months, Adam had learned to track how they made their music and who was the mastermind of the composition in the first place.

Where Blue’s would feature odd intervals of non-sequitur tunes woven into the melodies that somehow worked well to portray the intention of the lyrics of her songs, Noah’s would feature a more poppy vibe complete with the lyrics about friendship and the aesthetics of teenage life. They were hand-in-hand when it came to how to compose, and often complemented each other’s style. Adam had no qualms about this, especially when they made such beautiful and sentimental songs.

Matthew’s music would lean toward more instrumental music—which wasn’t surprising since he played the violin and lived with Niall’s never-ending fondness for Irish music—focusing on feeling and tone rather than writing in lyrics. The complexity of Matthew’s pieces often warranted sheet music, and Adam was delighted by the chance to practice more. (And learn more, if Gansey were around to reference classic composers’ styles.)

Ronan rarely wrote music, and if he ever did, Adam was never around to play or hear any of it. But he helped at times, whenever the others got stuck with chords and tempo. He was the resident prodigy on music, no matter how he mumbles about how he was self-taught and therefore exempt to this reputation-ruining title.

Blue had a grudging respect for him that bordered on endearing, at times, whenever Ronan rose from wherever he was lounging to suggest something. She put on a face of distaste for it, but she would always agree with whatever new tune Ronan would suggest.

(Adam tried not to think about how easily his train of thought derailed whenever Ronan leaned over him to correct a tune or tried a tempo for suggestion. It was never a problem before, when he was only beginning to learn playing, but now…)

With every song they sounded off to Gansey, who was more than willing to comment and proof their songs afterward. These were the times when Adam felt, all over again, like he was becoming bigger than whatever small being he made himself out to be. Because this—the music and the laughter and the togetherness of their group—was _something_ _more_ , and it wasn’t something he knew to be searching for until he found it and was grateful for it.

By the middle of adding the back-up vocals with an app on his phone, Noah stood from his perch by the drums and stretched, calling for a break. It had been ‘a good session’, as Noah would often say. Adam was inclined to agree. They’ve been playing the track over and over to hear what they’ve gotten down, and it sounded amazing.

The group broke up for potty breaks and such. Then, they gathered back again to try and set a pace for themselves.

Adam walked in from the backroom, with a pitcher of iced tea, followed by Ronan with the one mug of too-sweet coffee for Matthew and the cups for Noah and Blue. At the sight of the dripping pitcher of iced tea, Noah made a delighted sound and practically began bouncing as Adam started pouring their drinks by the counter.

Adam’s long sleeve slipped down his forearm as he lifted the pitcher, revealing the three-year old scar that was Adam’s first time dabble on how to stitch himself up. Noah froze in his bouncing, regarding it with an odd look on his face. Adam tried very hard not to let his hands shake as he set the pitcher down on the counter. He suddenly felt very cold.

Ronan made a frustrated noise from behind and lifted the pitcher to wipe at the water that dripped on the counter, a minor distraction that Adam was immensely grateful for as he withdrew and hastily fixed his sleeves. “Use the fucking coasters, Parrish, or you’ll be spending your next few visits trying to remove these shitty water stains.”

“Sorry,” Adam mumbled, leaning against the counter. He was careful not to meet anyone’s eyes, keeping his gaze on the floor, his hand on the cuffs of his shirt. Why had he decided against a sweater again today? He couldn’t remember.

“Where’d that come from, Adam?” came Noah’s small voice. It was loud in Adam’s ears. He kept his eyes on the floor.

Ronan began asking about what Noah was talking about before stopping, presumably spotting the way Adam’s shoulders bunched up the side of his head. In a low voice, he said, “Oh.”

Yeah. Oh.

Adam didn’t know if he wanted to lie about it, if he wanted to tell Noah that he got the deep scarring on the job. Would they care if Adam told them? He lifted his gaze from the floor, found three pairs of eyes expecting something important, found Ronan’s hand hovering just by his elbow, in that unconscious urge to comfort.

“A bottle,” Adam heard himself say, observing every reaction to this one fact he just gave them. “I dropped a glass of water and Dad had a bottle handy.” With numb hands, he pulled his sleeve down to show the others.

Ronan’s reaching hand turned into a fist as he clutched the side of Adam’s shirt. Noah’s face became blank and shuttered. Blue covered her gasp with a hand while Matthew openly stared at the scar.

There wasn’t really much to consider. It wasn’t a big gash, at least, not to Adam it wasn’t, and the shame in Adam’s tone was enough of a suggestion of what ‘Dad had a bottle handy’ meant. He shifted in his stance to let Ronan take more of his weight.

“You haven’t told anyone?” was Blue’s question, asked in a shaky voice that made Adam uneasy. He shook his head.

“Except for the five of us,” Ronan grumbled. He ran his free hand over his head in an act of agitation, his fist tightening its grip on Adam’s thin shirt, pulling Adam flush at his side and wrinkling the fabric. Adam found comfort in that warmth of Ronan’s knuckles by his side and didn’t bother to pull away.

Noah put his cup down on the counter and gave Adam a weak smile when the latter startled at the sound. “We won’t talk about it,” he said. He didn’t add, _if you don’t want to_ , and Adam was grateful for that. Crossing back to his drums and grabbing his phone from where he put it down on top of the base drum earlier, he said, “Let’s get back to recording, shall we?”

And they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been edited and completed weeks before and i'm just tired of staring at it while i'm dealing with some setbacks on future chapters. 
> 
> anywho, i am not sorry that adam is checking out the Hot Dudes.
> 
> as always, the gushing comments are appreciated, and the meatier ones will get somewhat instant and equally gushy responses.
> 
>  
> 
> [spread the word on tumblr? maybe? maybe not?](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/146196991950)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he walked off, he thought he heard Ronan say something, and when he looked over his shoulder, Ronan was already looking at him.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, a week before midterms. Aglionby’s library was buzzing with its students, a bi-annual event in a typical Aglionby school year.

Aglionby students both grappled and ignored at projects sent their way, both contemptuous and resigned as they ran to and fro to get notes they hadn’t taken earlier in the semester. They were panicking and carefree, restless and uncaring. It was an even split in the population of rich kids.

Adam was not one of those Aglionby students. His projects have been passed weeks ago, his notebooks and textbooks full of both researched information and copied directly from the boards. His schedule was free for work and study, and he was studious enough to read up on his notes every day. At the moment, he was left in the air as nearly all of his friends rejoined the rest of the Aglionby’s split masses: Gansey and Noah on the anxious side, Ronan and Matthew on the carefree side.

It was on that Wednesday afternoon, a week before midterms, with his textbooks made colorful with small notes in cheap ball point pen ink, set on a library table surrounded by snack cake wrappers and bottles of water, when Ronan took the seat in front of Adam.

See, it wasn’t that Adam was surprised to see Ronan there. This was normal for them, hanging around the library after school. It was just that… When Ronan walked pass to take a seat, Adam was overwhelmed with the smell of rubber, cut grass, sweat _and_ —

The other boy was still wearing his black sweatbands from tennis practice. The sweatbands didn’t go against the tennis team’s dress code which was surprising, considering that Ronan normally wore his Aglionby uniform in disarray and wore the army boots out of spite against his school’s dress code. Of course, instead of wearing the mandatory tennis whites, he wore a black muscle shirt and a pair of basketball shorts.

The attire didn’t fail to distract Adam, not even in the first time he saw Ronan donning his sportswear, clothes showcasing muscles framed rather differently when shown through ratty t-shirts in the Lyric.

This… distracted him.

“Finished practice?” Adam muttered, quick to recover, sure that Ronan was paying attention enough to read that slip-up anyway. Ronan made a non-committal grunt and relaxed into his seat, but he considered Adam’s stiff posture carefully.

Resolutely focusing on his textbooks and notes, Adam pushed a reference book and a notebook over the table without looking up. He found himself distracted again when Ronan stirred in his seat, wiping a hand across his sweaty forehead, his upper body thrown into the one movement. He tapped a finger on the open page and looked askance. Glancing away, Adam said, “Exams are in a week. You need to study.”

Ronan snorted at this, but reached forward to see whatever Adam had on his notes.

“Your handwriting is shit.”

“I understand it. Now do you want to study or do we have to leave now?” Adam asked. It was unfair of him to ask of this though, because Ronan never pushed when it came to this, their time spent in the library. He was content to stay silent across the table rather than leave Adam alone.

Ronan leaned back in his seat, letting the silence answer for him. Every once in a while, he’ll turn the page, but otherwise he seemed as focused on studying as Adam was.

* * *

 

The next time the subject was broached was Saturday. And this time, though Ronan was not, in any way, being distracting, Adam wasn’t studying.

Actually, Adam tried not to dread the fact that he wasn’t studying because he was too busy tutoring Matthew on his Algebra. The youngest Lynch brother wasn’t as rebellious as his older sibling, but he was just as unwilling to study. This fact was enough to make Ronan sure that Matthew needed tutoring, because Matthew was on the verge of getting below C.

Adam held his tongue, made sure not to point out that Ronan was getting below average on all his subjects apart from Latin. He was sure both Gansey and Declan have told Ronan of these facts. He was just as sure Ronan didn’t care much for those facts either so it was pointless.

By the closed lid of the piano, Noah tapped a beat on his knee as he stared down at Adam’s Bio notes. Initially, Noah was here on account that Adam wanted a favor from him, but seeing as Adam had other plans and that Ronan was there to see, he’d gone back on it and settled on studying with them.

Gansey, apparently, was more than comfortable studying at home, where he had his research books for both academic reasons and what he considered as recreation. Blue’s exams were ongoing, having earlier schedules than Aglionby, so she was also nowhere in sight too.

Ronan looked visibly bored by the counter, because Adam had forbidden him from playing the guitar for the next thirty minutes, to keep from distracting Matthew. He’d relented easily enough when Adam reminded him that tutoring Matthew was his request in the first place.

As Adam straightened to leave Matthew to his problem solving, he frowned at Ronan, who’d settled on pressing random numbers on the cash register.

“You’ll lose the bet on Latin if you keep this up, Ro,” Adam quipped, but the frown on his face kept it from being humorous. Ronan rolled his eyes, stabbing at the numbers at a steady tempo. From across the room, Adam could hear Noah’s beats syncing along with Ronan’s.

“In your dreams, Parrish. I can take that test with my eyes closed. I’ve got Whelk memorized,” he retorted.

It was Adam’s turn to roll his eyes at this. With a sigh, he said, “You can do vocab but your grammar is decent at best.” He fished out his own Latin notes from the bag he left behind the counter. “Come on, I’ll go over them with you.”

Ronan leaned away as Adam lightly batted at his face with the worn notebook. The smile right on the edge of his lips was on its way to teetering over and Adam was desperate to see it. “Translate your shitty cipher all you want, man. Just know that you’re helping the enemy.”

Adam rolled his eyes again, and grinned when the smile finally made its way on Ronan’s face.

 

“Finally had enough?”

This was aimed at Adam, who was leaning down on the counter to reach for the lockbox just a shelf below the cash register. Adam looked up, unsurprised to see Ronan casually standing across the room with his hands in his jeans. There was a lazy but awake air about him, despite the fact that they’d just spent the whole weekend studying for exams. Adam himself felt his eyelids drooping, his brain slowing down like nighttime traffic.

Ronan walked up and sat down in front of Adam, right by the cash register where he’d been seated the whole day, elbows on the counter, his heads stooping low between his shoulders as they hunched over the lockbox. Adam didn’t bother with a response as he fished out the roll of money from his pocket and counted each dollar as he put it all inside the box, only deigned Ronan’s presence with a lingering glance then left the other boy to do his own business.

Earlier, when Noah had called for a break, Adam had slipped out to exchange his pay stub and pay a few of the bills. It went unnoticed, and he got back to the Lyric just in time to catch Chester, who had his pizza delivery uniform on. “Gotta pay for rent,” Chester had said when Adam just stood there, and then they got inside and didn’t speak to each other.

As his savings increased with every dollar bill he slid into place, Adam got to wondering when he would have to pick out his own place to rent. He hadn’t checked any ads for consideration, and he wasn’t even sure there was a place for him to rent that didn’t require him to be of legal age. Would he reach eighteen without getting busted for keeping pay stubs?

He hadn’t noticed that he’d stopped counting until Ronan started tapping the metal lid with a blackened fingernail. Adam didn’t have to ask if Ronan had drawn on it to know because of the strong smell of the Sharpie ink.

“What,” Ronan said. He looked at the way Adam’s hands had frozen while counting the crumpled bills as he tapped a beat onto the lid. “D’you lose a dollar?”

Adam shook his head, laying his hands on top of the cold metal. “S’nothing. Just… thinking.”

Ronan didn’t look Adam in the eye when he nodded at this, keeping his eyes down on the wooden counter, tracing water stains that were left out of carelessness. It told the story of days hot enough to leave cold drinks out onto the counter, or days happy enough to make a small mistake such as this.

In the silence, Adam considered what he could lose if he told Ronan, considered the fact that he’d told Ronan the most vulnerable things about himself and the other boy never really seemed to care too much or too little. He could trust Ronan Lynch, and considering their time together, Ronan could trust Adam Parrish too.

The silence stretched out longer between them, longer than was necessary to add anything to the subject, but then Adam said, “I just don’t know if I should move out now or wait until I’m eighteen. It’s two years ahead, and my chances are… There aren’t a lot of places to rent around here, that’s all. And…”

Ronan looked at him through long lashes, listening, understanding. Adam was immensely grateful that he’d met Ronan Lynch.

Their gazes locked. After a minuscule and tense moment, he shook himself out of it. He’d stared enough.

“I’m,” Adam started, closing the lid to the lock box. He resigned to just counting his savings later on.  He didn’t know what he wanted to add to that as he continued moving, not stopping, shrugging on his bag. He glanced outside and saw the sun setting and said, “I need to get home. Get more studying in. I won’t know if I could come tomorrow though so. Yeah.”

Ronan stood up from his seat, hand at his pocket to reach for his car keys, “Wait, let me close up. I’ll drive you.”

* * *

 

It was nearing seven in the evening that Sunday night, Adam had already finished studying all the subjects he knew he was weak on and when he reached into his school bag for his Latin notes, he found that it wasn’t there. He frowned from where he sat on his bed, blindly grabbing at the insides of his bag by the edge of the bed. Roughly, he hauled the whole thing onto his lap, opening it up properly to see inside.

Not there. There was nothing save for a few pieces of paper, his old and dingy metal pencil case, and his duct tape wallet, an extremely colorful gift from Blue and Gansey he’d gotten a few days after his birthday.

Cursing softly, he pushed off his bed, grabbing at a sweater as he crept out of his room. His dad was out drinking with a few neighbors that evening, surely seated somewhere Adam was sure he wouldn’t see since the Evans lived deep within the trailer park. His mom was the only one inside the house with him, so she was the one who barely responded when Adam said he was going out for a ride.

The bike ride to the Lyric was enough to make Adam anxious, the cold air of the evening crawling up his fingers. He wasn’t completely sure if Ronan was still going to be there or if the store was already closed down. He could always just cycle to Monmouth and borrow Gansey’s notes if it was.

 

The Lyric, thankfully, was still open when he finally got there. The wave of relief at the sight of Declan’s Volvo would have made Adam weak at the knees if they weren’t shaking with exertion already. That meant that both brothers were in, and that Adam could just slip around if they were having some kind of argument.

He opened the door and stumbled in. The sound of the bells overhead was obscured by the creaky door by the backroom opening.

“Dee, it wasn’t my fucking idea, okay? Please. Just let it go,” Ronan pleaded, sounding a little bit pained. His shoulders were tense as he walked to the counter, his brows furrowed in frustration, making him look all sorts of wrong. Adam looked to see the eldest Lynch brother trail out from the backroom, looking uncharacteristically soft in his casual clothing. Declan was in the middle of saying something, probably nothing good, when both brothers tensed at the sound of the bells by the entrance, as the door shut behind Adam.

Declan squinted at Adam a tad too suspiciously to be friendly. “You have impeccable timing, Parrish,” he spat. The hostility wasn’t anything new, per se, but it took Adam by surprise either way. There was a while when he thought Declan had warmed up to him, but Adam supposed he could count it on the fact that they rarely spoke to each other to be hostile.

Not feeling like rising up to the bait, Adam mockingly held his hands up, kept his face and voice flat, retorting, “By all means, don’t stop on my account. I just came here for something.”

Ronan seemed as keen as Declan at the thought of continuing the argument with Adam there to listen, because he turned away from his older brother and asked, “What is it?”

Adam noted the odd behavior. He’d been there to witness the last five of the Lynch brothers’ weekly fights, and now was the only time Ronan didn’t want to put up a show. “My Latin notes, I think I dropped them here somewhere.”

Ronan stepped back from the counter, glaring below at the shelves hidden from Adam’s view. He leaned down and tossed something at Adam. The pages flapped mid-air.

He caught it. ‘It’ being a battered notebook. Not Adam’s though; Ronan’s, judging by the handwriting. It looked and felt heavier in Adam’s hands as he glimpsed at the leaking ink of the pen that Ronan used for his notes and the legible bulk of words in English and Latin.

“These aren’t mine,” Adam protested, but stopped short of saying more when Ronan held up a hand. Declan watched this exchange with as much disdain as Adam held with Ronan’s lack of enthusiasm in his studies but they both didn’t say anything.

When Adam didn’t move or say anything, waiting for either Declan or Ronan to do something, Ronan said, “Consider this a truce in Latin. Now, don’t you have to be somewhere studying?” When Adam looked at Declan for a second, he saw the older Lynch brother give Ronan a look.

Adam tried to squash the hope blooming in his guts at the look of determination in Ronan’s eyes as he turned as if to discuss something with his brother. With one final look at the grim brothers, Adam scrammed.

 

And as he cycled back to the trailer park, he failed at any chance of squashing that hope and instead struggled to think of ways to return the favor though objectively, he knew he didn’t have to; that there was no favor in the first place.

He found himself failing, again, as he was further distracted by memories of scenic countryside drives, of misty lakes hidden from the world, of shoulders pressed together, of fingers hovering over his bruised cheek; he was distracted by good memories and a guitar and music lessons and the way Ronan looked under the lights outside the Lyric as tears streamed down both of their faces.

He remembered a poem written in the margin of his notes (on which subject, his mind couldn’t provide the information), and it just felt _right_ at that moment.

 

When he sat down in his bed later on, a piece of buttered toast in his mouth, he opened Ronan’s messy but articulate notes and found a piece of colored paper the size of a newspaper column with the words _St. Agnes Parish Church opens office attic for rent to struggling youths willing to pay._

It looked like a fairly old piece of paper, maybe a few years old if Adam estimated it by the texture of it between his fingers. The rent cost, written in smaller font, was sensible. The room accommodations were fairly small, but enough for one “struggling youth” that had little to no personal belongings.

Adam felt his heart stop at the sight of it, _feeling_ overtaking his gut. Pursing his lips, he delicately folded the paper and tucked it in between the pages of Ronan’s Latin notes and this time, when he resolutely told himself to not think about it, he succeeded.

* * *

 

Exhaustion was on the verge of control but Adam was resolved to keep awake. Mondays called for a shift at Boyd’s before school, so in the three hours that Adam got the previous night, running on two cups of cheap coffee, he fixed about two engines within the four-hour shift he had. The numbers jumbled in his brain, but the meditative process of twisting screws and other such things was enough to keep his mind blissfully awake as the caffeine worked its way into his system.

The problem was when he pedaled to school, with the wind whipping his hair this way and that, and the blues and purples tinting everything in sight. His mind, then awake and running, was going into places he’d resolved not to think about just that previous night. The weight of Ronan’s notebook in his beat-up messenger bag was heavy with sentiment.

It didn’t feel like a favor, as much as he told himself that it was. He’d told Ronan about his problem with renting apartments, and Ronan knew his situation at home enough to know that he wanted out as soon as possible. It was help, and though Adam needed it, he didn’t think he should take it.

Aglionby was only beginning to stir when he got there.

“Adam!”

This was Gansey, supporting a clinging paler-than-normal Noah as they leaned against the Mustang. As Adam scanned the parking lot, he found no Camaro in sight. Adam jumped off his bike and walked the rest of the way to them.

“Gansey, Noah. Where’s the Camaro?” he asked.

Noah gave a breathy laugh as Gansey’s face twisted into something that looked dramatically pained. The older boy’s dark eyes were darker with the bags underneath them. Adam could see now why Ronan frequently called Noah a ghost.  He wondered how many hours of sleep both of the boys in front of him got, considering that Gansey was an insomniac and the exams would begin in a few hours.

“Pig broke down so we left it at home,” Gansey answered.

They stayed there chatting against the old Mustang as the parking lot filled. Noah gave the thumbs up when Adam asked if he could lean his bike against the car, and they just quizzed each other on their subjects, knowing full well that their classes were far apart from each other and even further apart from the parking lot but staying there anyway.

Adam heard the BMW way before either Gansey or Noah could. The growl of the engine was undeniably distinct against all the other fancy sup’d up cars among the Aglionby parking lot. It was just by chance that Adam recognized it while he was asking Gansey a question.

“Adam?” Gansey said, grabbing his attention away from the sound.

Adam shook his head, “Sorry, I just. I need to give Ronan his notes back.” Then he excused himself.

Ronan was barely out of his car when Adam reached into his bag and swatted lightly at the other boy’s face. Ronan didn’t protest at Adam’s sudden presence, grabbing at his notebook, brushing fingers briefly. Adam froze a little at the small action, his mind tunneling at the miniscule contact, but eventually he snapped out of it.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping back a little as Ronan completely got out of his car. His uniform, as always, was purposefully disheveled in that way that frustrated Adam on some days, this day included. At least it wasn’t the tennis attire.

Ronan shrugged in response. Adam didn’t pay the non-response any mind. Instead, they, shoulder to shoulder, headed back to the Mustang to meet up with the others. When the bells rang, they split up quick to avoid tardy slips.

With one final moment in the halls, Ronan and Adam hesitated. There was no tension visible on their bodies or faces, but the air was thick with it. Adam caught Ronan’s gaze at the hall they split up at, took a moment to remember every detail on Ronan’s face as if it were their final meeting. It wasn’t, but he liked looking at Ronan’s face anyway, he admitted to himself.

He heard himself say, “Good luck,” and he saw Ronan nod in response. When he walked off, he thought he heard Ronan say something, and when he looked over his shoulder, Ronan was already looking at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been TEN DAYS, and i'm still a bit behind but since the next two chapters are longer than the usual chapters, i think it's forgiven?
> 
> (it gets gayer, folks, hold onto your seats)
> 
> again, all comments are appreciated, i'll respond to the meatier ones, my tumblr is [here](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com) so idk, go to my ask and probably shout at me.
> 
> [spread the love. or you know, maybe not, idk man.](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/146701280835)


	12. Chapter 12

St. Agnes wasn't a very large chapel. It was on a corner, a block away from Mountain View High, about three blocks away from Monmouth Manufacturing, and a few shortcuts through the town center from 300 Fox Way’s backyard, which meant that Adam could leave his bike at 300 Fox Way after he and Blue’d gone dog-walking together, and then just walk straight on to the church’s office.

The church was quaint and evenly spaced, with windows large enough to let in natural light, enough that nothing more than a few lit candles would brighten up the place before dusk. It smelled of incense and timber dust and lit matches, and it reeked of mixed perfumes and sweat. It held fifteen church pews in each of the three columns and it was full of people today. The large marble font by the entrance was nearly empty when Adam had looked into it while passing.

Seeing as every seat was full of churchgoers, Adam stood by the sidelines. He stood there with a still-heavy wallet and a guilty conscience.

It wasn't that he was guilty that the Parrishes weren't religious as he stood there in Mass, wasn’t like he felt like an impostor in a room full of people that were not at all bothered about it. Jodie Parrish was a Christian, and his birth certificate marked him as one out of convenience. Adam had never stepped into a church in his entire life, and never had enough reason to until recently.

No, actually, he was guilty because he'd just given Ms. Ramirez, the head lady (head nun?) in the church office, Ronan's number for her to contact him. What made him guiltier was that he hadn’t talked to the other boy about it first.

Ms. Ramirez had been a kind woman, homely and humble. Adam had expected that from a nun, so he hadn’t been surprised or uncomfortable about it. She had politely told him that the room was not currently up for grabs, but if he would like, she could contact him whenever the person renting had informed her, a week advanced, that they were moving out.

Adam was incredibly grateful for that, already mentally calculating any possible additions to his funds, or any depletion if he failed to make ends meet with the salary his father knew about. While there was no harm in getting the room in that moment, there was also no harm in earning more money, be a little more prepared, think of other necessities that wouldn’t just be for food and rent.

With that, Ms. Ramirez told him to have a good day, all the other niceties most nuns would use, and let him show himself out when he excused himself.

It was a good visit.

But Ms. Ramirez wouldn’t be talking to a Mr. Adam Parrish if the person renting the room got out within the next month, and that meant that Adam had to talk to Ronan about it, which he should have done beforehand anyway.

It was a complete mess, was what he got himself into.

To try and take his mind off of it, he glanced around the church, seeing if he’ll recognize a few faces while he waited for the service to be over. He didn’t want to disrupt the peace by leaving the church abruptly, especially since the only entryway had doors that were too large and incredibly loud when opening and closing. It would be too much of a distraction, and Adam was not about that.

As he looked and recognized no one, he noted how everyone was wearing their neatest but  most simplistic clothing. The women wore conservative dresses, looking stuffy and warm in the crowds, waving fans in varying speeds. The men wore button-downs and pants. Beer bellies and caked makeup were not uncommon, and everyone seemed eerily focused on the priest talking by the altar.

And it was then, in between church dresses and black slacks and droning responses, that Adam saw:

Awash with bright light coming in from the windows, his dress shirt neatly tucked into his black jeans, unusually devoid of any wrinkle that would have been there had he been in his school uniform, sat Ronan Lynch.

He looked different in this light, in this setting, another side of Ronan that wasn’t the soft and silent one from the Barns; wasn’t the fierce and fiery one from the confines of the Lyric; wasn’t the rough and rugged one from the halls of Aglionby; and wasn’t the loud and lively one that sang on the stage during the open mic event.

This was Ronan Lynch standing in the house of a god Adam didn’t believe in.

By the sidelines, Adam stared and stared, unable to believe it, like Ronan was some kind of illusion. Seated next to Ronan was the whole family, Niall and his boys dressed similarly, and linked to the man’s arm was Aurora in her blue dress. Next to Declan was a woman clad in pink that Adam had never met before, which was enough for Adam to assume that it was Ashley, who Ronan had alluded to a few times yesterday.

(They were at Nino’s, celebrating for the third time that week, the novelty of passing the pressures of midterms. Gansey made a gesture as if to wave Ronan’s words off from across the table, probably something derisive about Declan and… Whoever. Adam didn’t catch the middle Lynch brother’s words, as he was too busy trying to swat said boy’s hand away whenever he thought to poke at Adam’s side.

Leaning away from the table, Gansey gave Ronan a _look_ and said, “I’m sure Ashley’s a charming young woman, Ronan. You shouldn’t be judgmental of who your brother dates.”

Ronan snorted in reply, hand seeming to rest in the few inches of space between his and Adam’s thighs. Still, Adam eyed it warily, chewing on a pizza slice.  In a mocking tone, Ronan said, “I wouldn’t be judging _her_ , man. Not in my job description. I just feel bad for her since she’s settling with my brother, is all.”)

Adam had forgotten that the Lynches regularly attended Mass in St. Agnes and mentally berated himself for forgetting.

Looking away from the Lynch family’s pew and taking a deep breath, Adam prayed that Ronan wouldn’t look his way.

And for a few moments, God listened.

After a few moments, their eyes met, which was terrible timing as this was just as Adam was thinking of leaving because no one really listened too much during droning homilies.

When their eyes met, Ronan gave him that same small smile-shy wave combination Adam always received in Latin whenever he caught the other boy looking his way. Out of that context and seeing Ronan dressed in those clothes made his knees feel ready to give out when those eyes met his, when that smile made the bright lights filling the church somehow brighter.

The small action caught Aurora’s attention, Matthew’s, then Niall’s, and then the whole Lynch family was looking at Adam from across the room, and Matthew was slowly mouthing, “Come sit with us!” as Niall swatted at Ronan and Matthew’s arms so that they would make way for Adam. The pew could hold as many as seven people, but still Adam hesitated.

People were looking.

With a roll of his eyes, Ronan stood, stepped over Matthew, ducked across the aisles, and made to grab at Adam’s wrist, Adam noticed, but didn’t follow through until he had noticed long enough to evade. When he didn’t, Ronan’s hand grabbed loosely at his wrist, large enough to fit the entirety of it in his palm. His palm was warm and for a few moments, all of Adam’s focus was honed in on the point of contact.

He leaned in close, enough that Adam could smell a whiff of cologne mixing in with Ronan’s usual scent, and it was nearly too intoxicating for Adam. Ronan whispered, breath blowing over Adam’s ear, “If you’re staying, you might as well sit down with us.”

Ronan leaned away, fingers loose around Adam’s wrist. There was a blank look on his face but the pink dusting over his cheeks gave him away. Adam sighed, trying to tame the too-fast beating of his heart, nodded, and let himself be dragged into the pew, squeezing in between Matthew and Ronan.

He smiled shyly and nodded a greeting at the rest of the Lynches, softly introduced himself to Ashley, and tried very hard not to think about Ronan—neatly dressed—silently pressed up against his side.

Somehow, he only felt out of place then, once he’d sat next to Ronan on that pew. He didn’t even attempt to look at Ronan even as the taller boy sang worship songs with enough faith for the both of them. All he did was stand and sit and kneel at appropriate times, listening intently to the sound of Ronan’s voice.

 

When Mass was ended, Adam couldn’t help but fidget, watching as Aurora and Niall jovially roamed around and greeted other church-goers. Declan and Ashley were with Matthew, already halfway across the center aisle leading towards the exit, politely addressing the people who stopped them along the way to chat.

Adam stayed behind, choosing to stick with Ronan. The other boy did not smile politely at the other church-goers, and didn’t even pretend to try conversing with them. Even inside the church, Ronan wasn’t open or polite. Instead, Ronan turned to Adam and asked, with his voice soft enough so that only the two of them could hear, “What’re you doing here?”

Adam almost laughed. He didn’t. He looked Ronan in the eye when he said, “Don’t ask questions you know the answers to, Lynch.”

Ronan didn’t nod, didn’t hum noncommittally, didn’t break eye-contact until Aurora called out to them, and Adam could have stood inside that church doing nothing else if he had the chance.

Once the boys caught up with the rest in the parking lot, Aurora smiled at Adam and said, “We’re going out for lunch, dear.”

Oh.

Adam was about to smile and politely decline the non-offer when Niall leaned out of the BMW and called out, “Don’t even think about it, boy. I’m not letting you get away with pushing my sons’ grades up without at least giving you a meal as thanks.”

Taken aback, Adam opened his mouth to… decline? Say thank you? Apologize? He closed his mouth and looked up at Ronan, who was grinning at him. When he looked, Matthew was already rushing to get into the BMW, Aurora not far behind. Ashley was being helped into the Volvo, and Declan was trying hard not to scoff at Niall’s melodramatic tendencies.

Adam sighed. His gaze landed on Ronan’s, and he already knew he’d decided even before he tried to look for an out.

“Okay.”

 

Adam decided to ride with Declan and Ashley in the Volvo, and there was a minute-long argument outside the car where Ronan and Declan had it out.

Ashley was in the passenger seat while Adam sat alone in the back, the older woman looking a little concerned, but Adam didn’t bother checking. Ronan and Declan frequently had arguments that were more heated than this. If the brothers never got physical inside the Lyric, he doubted they’d ever get physical outside a church and with their parents just a car over.

“You get used to it,” he told her, trying for reassuring. Ashley turned to look at him, then flinched when one of the brother’s smacked not-so lightly at the roof of the car.

Ashley frowned, no doubt mirroring the one on Adam’s face. “Is this normal?”

Adam shrugged. “For them. They’ll smooth it out eventually.”

It was over before they both knew it, and before Ashley could get a word in, Ronan was wrenching the door open and was shoving Adam away with a, “Move or I’m sitting on you.”

Adam moved to the seat behind Ashley’s and watched as Declan and Ronan got in and slammed their doors simultaneously. The whole car shook and Adam was already trying too hard not to grin at this point.

“You’re lucky we’re related,” Declan grumbled, glaring at his younger brother through the rear-view mirror, then at Adam’s poorly concealed bemusement. When Adam caught this, he raised a brow at the older Lynch. Declan didn’t respond, merely moved to shift gears as they drove out of the lot.

Ronan crossed his arms and huffed, but didn’t say much else. He leaned back in his seat, knocking knees with Adam and minutely kicking at the back of Declan’s seat. There was a tempo there, Adam noticed, and his mind kept with it as Declan tried to keep up with his father’s fast driving.

* * *

 

The restaurant, when they arrived, was as local and quaint as St. Agnes felt. It wasn’t themed or larger-than-life, and it set Adam’s mind at ease because he wasn’t the only one wearing casual clothing when they’d gone inside.

It wasn’t crowded, but it held a lot of long tables in various corners of the room, enough to say that the establishment was popular with locals on occasion. Declan and Ashley seemed engaged in whatever they were talking about, and Matthew was now having a very serious discussion with Ronan over the table that required him to doodle on the tissues to explain it to his older brother. When Adam listened in, it took him about ten seconds before realizing that the siblings were arguing about the cows in the Barns.

Niall, sitting next to Matthew, looked to Adam and promptly disbanded the discussion with, “You know, kid, I didn’t expect you to actually influence these idiots when I told you to do it the last time you visited. You did a pretty good job.”

“Thanks, sir,” he squeaked out. Niall laughed loudly, making Adam flush. Ronan leaned away from where he was observing Matthew’s doodles and bumped Adam with his shoulder. Adam gave him a small smile.

Niall punched Matthew’s shoulder lightly, jostling the pen out of the youngest Lynch’s grip. “What do you say, Matthew?”

Adam blinked at this interaction, and nearly blanched when Matthew started thanking him. “Oh, no. It’s fine, really.” Adam shook his head, holding a hand out as Matthew grinned at him. Adam thought he was more related to Ronan just then. “You—He’s already thanked me enough in the past week, Mr. Lynch. Him and Ronan both.”

Ronan snorted at this. “I did no such thing.”

Declan nodded in agreement at this. “Ronan’s not polite enough,” he grinned. Ashley’s eyes widened almost comically, turning to smack at Declan’s arm. His grin was mischievous and impish, and Adam finally saw just how similar the Lynch brothers were to themselves and to their father: that same larger-than-life presence, that same love for cars, that same love for family, and that exact carbon copy of a grin. And the same stupid sense of humor, Adam thought. He wondered at how strong Aurora really was if she were to raise all these boys together.

Ronan made a face at his brother and shifted in his seat. There was a brief scuffle where Adam and Ashley were caught in the middle of the fray that was Declan and Ronan childishly kicking each other below the table. Matthew laughed delightedly as Niall just shook his head. Ashley took to sitting sideways with a tired look that made Adam try not to make it obvious that he was laughing.

“Boys,” Aurora warned, not even bothering to look up from where she was perusing the menu on the other side of Ronan. Both brothers stopped at the one word, settling on giving each other the stink-eye. This time, Adam did laugh, and only started laughing harder when Ronan took to poking his side to silence him.

Adam settled down, twisting away from Ronan’s finger, catching his breath as he muttered low enough so that only Ronan could hear his teasing, “Absolutely no table manners, did you grow up in a farm?”

Ronan’s petulant and embarrassed expression turned broke out into a grin, looking like he was about to laugh too. Adam felt light and exhilarated at the sight of it. “As a matter of fact…” Ronan trailed off, leaning into Adam’s space, his hand raising between them. Adam shook his head at it, almost standing to avoid the poke.

The waiter came just then, and this time, the boys were at their best manners as Aurora ordered their meals, asking if they wanted this or that, if only to keep her sons distracted enough to keep them from acting like hooligans. The whole time, Niall had a fond look on his face, lovingly aimed at his wife.

The same process happened until the food arrived. Ronan and Adam joked among themselves, Declan would make a snide remark, Matthew would chat up his brothers or Adam and Ashley about random things, and either Niall or Aurora would stop the older Lynch brothers before things got too serious.

The table was shrouded in silence when the food arrived and everyone started eating. Aurora kept the silences minimum by the end as she brought up conversation topics. She would ask Ashley about her work, and Declan would insert anecdotes from DC that complemented her answers. Matthew laughed and scoffed in all the right places, making comments that would made Ronan snicker and Niall guffaw.

Adam responded whenever a question was aimed toward him which, oddly, almost all of them came from Niall. Mostly it was about how he was doing in school or how much he knew about vehicles. Adam would tell anecdotes about regulars and amateur employees in the workplace, and in turn, Matthew and Ronan would give their comments and reactions.

It was… pleasant. It always was pleasant with the Lynches. For a moment, Adam almost forgot what he was doing before he saw them at St. Agnes, and the reason why he was at St. Agnes to begin with.

Almost.

 

Aurora very firmly declined when Adam offered to pay for his meal, pointing out that Declan wasn’t paying for anything despite the fact that he was well-off and had money, and neither was Ashley when, Adam began to reason out that Declan was part of the family. In the end, he had no choice but to retreat.

Aurora gave him a warm smile and told him it was okay, and he nodded, not really believing it.

Afterwards, Adam and Declan started the cars, waiting outside in the shade as they waited for the air-co to kick in. Niall had warned his boys that there would be no stopping for any potty breaks once they drove out, and almost everyone had rushed to the restrooms. The Barns were only a few minutes away but Declan and Ashley would still have to drive back to DC by the evening, so it seemed that the Lynches would be coming with the couple for more family bonding.

Adam thought that maybe he could just tell Ronan once they got home from DC; maybe he could just tell the other boy to try and contact him to tell him what Ms. Ramirez had said, if ever she called early. Adam could just ask Declan to drop him off at Monmouth, he could retrieve his bike from Fox Way, and just ask Ronan about it the next morning, or that evening if the other boy would be inclined to pick up a phone booth caller ID.

Adam sighed softly. Should this be news told over the phone or face-to-face? Who’s to say that Ronan hadn’t already decided that he wanted to talk to Adam about this now or tomorrow?

Would Ronan even want to talk about it? Hell, did he even give Adam the tip on purpose or was Adam just reading too deep into this?

“Before I forget to ask: what’s your business with... Ronan?”

The question brought Adam out of his thoughts. Deliberately looking around the parking lot, it was a while before he looked at Declan, who’d asked him the question out of the blue.

If he were to pick apart that question in just that second, Adam would have thought that Declan was genuinely concerned for his brother’s well-being. But why wouldn’t he be, Adam thought to himself. The Lynch brothers were a solid pack, and though Declan and Ronan were no Gansey and Ronan, they were still going to be concerned about each other’s well being, regardless of the animosity. In the Lynch household, family was everything.

“We’re classmates, and he teaches me music,” Adam answered, a bit perplexed at Declan’s line of thought with this. Considering recent events, he couldn’t think of himself as someone who could harm Ronan Lynch, and considering Declan, this line of questioning wasn’t really because he’d forgotten who Adam was to Ronan. “You—I thought you already knew that.”

Declan rolled his eyes at this, mumbling something incoherent as he pocketed his phone. “Right. Let me rephrase that then.” He stepped forward, leaning his back against the Volvo, a piercingly blue stare pinning Adam effectively in place.

“You know that he likes you, right?”

Adam’s eyes widened at this, but then he frowned at Declan. There was no harm on being honest with Declan, who had the tendency to lie and cheat, according to Ronan. If his goal was to out Ronan and push Adam away, he wouldn’t have been asking Adam if he knew that Ronan liked him. He would have been asking Adam if he knew Ronan was gay. Declan Lynch was many things but a homophobe wasn’t one of them.

And if his goal was to expose Adam as a manipulative bastard for admitting that he knew Ronan liked him and was just stretching it out— _you’re not,_ he thought to himself, _you’re not just toying with Ronan Lynch—_ then Ronan wouldn’t be inclined to believe his brother anyway. Adam clenched his jaw tight, trying to calm himself.

“Yeah. I know.”

Declan nodded at this, solemn, as if he knew what Adam was thinking and agreed with all of it; as if he knew what kind of scenarios and possibilities his questions had brought up in Adam’s head and didn’t care to comfort the younger boy from the potential truth of them.

There was a brief silence where he stared into middle distance before he looked back at Adam and said, “He doesn’t get the concept of casual dating. He’s never actually dated before, and he’s not the most conventional guy. He’s barely likable so he thinks that whoever gets him is gonna be The One. It’s pretty stereotypically Catholic boy of him. It’s why he hates _me_ anyway, thinks I shouldn’t just go through girls like they’re clothes.”

He looked more focused now, giving Adam a wry smile. “As if the breakups weren’t mutual.”

Adam nodded. He knew that.

There was more silence. He heard Declan mumble, “You trust him too,” but before Adam could ask, before he could goad Declan into explaining himself, Ashley and Ronan arrived and with them, Aurora, Niall and Matthew.

The cars were cool enough by now that opening a door would let out cold air. Ronan looked suspiciously between Adam and Declan, no doubt noticing their tense silence as Declan helped Ashley into her seat.

Adam looked at Ronan, studied the taller boy’s profile as he squinted suspiciously at his brother. Distantly, Adam heard Declan scoff and bark at Ronan to get in the car. Ronan rolled his eyes and pushed past Adam to get in the car.

When he looked, he found Declan smirking at him. Adam shook his head but got inside the car anyway.

* * *

 

It took Adam a few minutes to figure out why Declan took a turn from the main road and slowed as they got to the Antebellum strip. This was probably part of why the brothers had argued earlier at St. Agnes, leaving his brother at the Lyric instead of bringing him with the rest to DC like they’d planned, so Adam wisely kept his mouth shut.

The Lyric loomed ahead, just as grand as Adam had first seen it, looking darker in the tinted windows. He could hear Ashley make a curious noise in the passenger seat as her eyes found it.

Ronan didn’t waste a second, didn’t wait until the car stopped completely before opening the door abruptly. Declan opened his mouth to protest but just as soon as the door opened it closed, and Ronan was out, leaving the car more tense in its silence than before.

“Um, thanks for the lift,” Adam said, moving to step out of the Volvo. He didn’t look at them, already scanning the strip for a button-down clad Ronan Lynch, frowned as the bells above the Lyric’s entrance rang and the door closed. “Stay safe.”

As he closed the door and turned to look for Ronan in the front windows, he heard Ashley call out from her rolled down window, “We’ll see you next Sunday, Adam!”

He froze, feeling tense as he turned to look at the young woman in Declan’s Volvo. From where he stood, he could see her beaming back at him, Declan turning his head to nod. Adam nodded back, and gave a weak wave as they drove off.

He didn’t think he’d make it a habit of regularly attending Mass with the Lynches, haven’t even done good to his promise he made to Aurora about how he’ll visit the Barns  after the dinner months ago so he thought maybe Ashley was just kidding. He’d never really thought to get involved this intimately with the Lynches in the first place.

He turned back around, stopped short as he caught his reflection in the front glass pane.

The afternoon had painted his surroundings a muted orange. His reflection was scruffy at best, the bags under his eyes had been lightening up as he’d been recovering from his dead hours for midterms, and there was a faint five o’clock shadow around his jaw. He reached up to rub at it when he caught movement in his peripheral vision.

A figure inside the store moved around the counter in the back, blending  into the darkness of the room.

 _Ronan_.

Adam moved to push into the Lyric, eyes on Ronan, who had his head rested on his arms on the counter. He hadn’t bothered to flip the sign at the door to say that it was open, hadn’t bothered to mess up his church clothes, hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights.

Cautiously, Adam approached, moving to sit down on the counter next to Ronan’s head.

This was oddly a familiar position to be in. Adam wondered if he was the one who was supposed to be saying something to test the bonds between them this time, if he was going to be the one to sway Ronan into making a decision that was already a long time coming. His heartbeat hammered against his chest at the thought. _What if_.

He did not swing his legs, did not hit the counter with the heels of his sneakers like Ronan had. Instead, he hummed the last song that came to mind, which was one of the worship songs from earlier in the church.

Ronan turned his head in the crook of his sleeved arm, the whites of his eyes catching light, instantly taking Adam’s breath away with one look. They observed each other for a long moment or, rather, Adam observed Ronan for a long moment that Ronan had allowed before the latter asked, “Why’d you stop?”

Adam realized then that he’d stopped humming the moment Ronan had looked at him. With a shrug, Adam settled for tapping a beat on the counter-top, looking back out the front windows as if he wasn’t embarrassed.

“Why were you at St. Agnes this morning?” Ronan asked.

Adam blinked, then looked back at Ronan, afterimages of the orange light shielding Ronan’s features from his vision. It took him a few minutes to blink out of his eyes. He asked, “Why do you keep asking me why when you already know why?

Ronan huffed at this, rolling his eyes almost fondly. He shifted and settled his chin on his arm, looking up at Adam through long lashes. “If I did know, which I don’t, not completely, I wouldn’t be asking, Parrish.”

Ronan never lied when it was between the two of them so that meant a lot of things, and Ronan was counting on Adam to evaluate each of them.

Adam considered this confusion, the tip off to the room up at St. Agnes, and his thoughts from earlier in the parking lot. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Adam pushed aside any uncertainty and told him, “You’re the one who gave me the tip to the room above the church office so I asked about it.” With some hesitation, he added, “By the way, I gave the head… I gave the lady at the office your number. She’ll try to contact me through that.”

 _Like a band-aid_ , Adam thought. He ignored the thought in favor of figuring Ronan out. There was a frown on the other boy’s lips, a knot in his brow, a question in his eyes.

Adam tried to keep the impatience out of his voice when he said, “What.”

Ronan continued to look confused. He fumbled over his words a few times, lifting his head from his arms to seem more composed. “I just—I didn’t think you’d take it. I thought you’d get angry about it.”

 _For what?_ Adam wanted to ask, but didn’t. This would have shut Ronan up and they’d just began talking about this subject.

Ronan scoffed at Adam’s silence, incorrectly interpreting it as judgment all too soon. “It’s dumb. Whatever. Forget it.”

There was some credibility in Ronan’s statement though. If the tip came from another person, Adam would have been enraged. He would think that it was pity or charity, and he would have lashed out. Adam was perfectly capable of getting himself an apartment. But unlike any other person, Ronan didn’t force it upon Adam, telling Adam that he deliberately looked for the room and thus making Adam feel like he owed Ronan something. Ronan just gave him the tip knowing full well that Adam would turn it down.

He gave Adam a choice.

Adam surprised both of them by saying, “No, you’re right, it is. It is dumb.” Ronan’s eyes flicked over him, his face and body movements and eyes, looking for signs of anger, no matter how small. He would have found none either way.

“You gave me a choice. Why would I be mad about that?”

As silence reigned between them, Adam noticed that he’d stopped tapping out a beat, noticed as  the tension in Ronan’s form slowly trickled away as relief set in, noticed Ronan’s hand palm up on the counter and his now-idle hand just sitting next to it.

As the silence reigned, Ronan put his palm down on the counter and linked pinkies with Adam.

Adam allowed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/147291862345)   
>  [ *whispers* i did a thing with that final scene you should go reblog it or something](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/147338483995)
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> thanks, everyone, for your patience. the past week's been hectic for me, and it was a struggle to write the thirteenth chapter more than the fourteenth, so i had to keep at writing. i hope y'all liked this one!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Adam, Ronan and music were interchangeable.

Adam was never one to take days off during state holidays. He found no reason to and couldn’t really afford to. His parents didn’t raise him to be devout or patriotic. They weren’t intimate or caring enough to keep their son indoors during holidays when he could be out of the house earning money by the hour. They also definitely never celebrated anything, save for the occasional neighborhood party or barbecue. Even birthdays weren’t celebrated in the Parrish household.

Money wasn’t spent on anything frivolous, and state holidays were ignored.

Though there wasn’t any extra pay for anyone who got in for work during state holidays and state traditions and the like, somehow, Adam had convinced Boyd at the auto shop and Mr. Gordon at the trailer factory to give him a fair enough amount of money for all the extra hours he put in.

Adam was aware that that was because he was the only one of the under-aged employees on each job that did this, and that was something that kind of ticked him off. It wasn’t like it was unusual for his other co-workers to put in extra hours during the holidays, wasn’t unusual that his co-workers didn’t ditch jobs when they were sick like he did either. He wasn’t the only hard-working employee at Boyd’s or the trailer factory. But he was too obvious. He never missed work, never took his paid leaves for extra money by the end of the month, always did the taxes on a notebook in the backroom during breaks.

The extra pay felt too much like charity, however fair it may seem to his bosses. But though it felt too much like cheating, Adam kept his mouth shut. These were the jobs that his father’s connections got him, and if he disrupted the peace, made a ruckus about something trivial, Robert would not be pleased about it.

So of course, when Ruth, a former co-worker at Boyd’s, went off on a late start with college about a week ago, Adam was given her shifts and was pushing in extra hours at the auto shop to make up for the loss, on a Wednesday night shift that wasn’t supposed to exist, the night before Thanksgiving despite Boyd’s insistence.

Physically, Adam was tired, on his back underneath an old Toyota Corolla, trying to check out the gas leak that the client had complained about, his hands and fingers firm where his eyes were getting a bit fuzzy, the back of his hands stinging against the gloves since they chapped not even days ago —as they did seasonally—when the Virginian air cooled down.

Mentally, he was restless and jumping, considering turns of phrases, rhymes and poems, old inside jokes and platitudes, attempting at using language to manifest the feeling of Ronan’s pinky locked with his on the counter of the Lyric.

Adam was no song writer like Blue or Noah or Matthew; he didn’t know how to formulate various chords to compose a melody and thus, he had no idea how to go about wanting to write a song and giving it to Ronan. He wasn’t quite like Ronan, who was born with the incredible privilege of being surrounded by a family that encouraged his love for everything and for music.  The Parrishes were about as affectionate and supportive as they were rich. Everything Adam took interest in (apart from jobs he actually liked) was frivolous and unnecessary. The only rebellion was to pursue each and every single one of them, and so Adam went.

Music was another one of those rebellions. Music was impulsive, steadfast, inspiring, wordless, and as Adam attempted at writing lyrics in his head, so was Ronan.

To Adam, Ronan and music were interchangeable, forever intertwined. They were both a concept so abstract in Adam’s head that he couldn’t manage to write something simple and meaningful that wouldn’t run on tangents, yet so concrete that it felt like nothing could be more real in his life.

Both had melodies that could be taken apart and still be beautiful when witnessed individually. Melodies that, when put together, would make for a complicated and all-encompassing movement that could wipe Adam off his feet with a look, a smile, a small wave.

Both had slowly become a comfort, an interest, something exhilarating. Both were concepts that were purely Adam’s, never something he would share with Robert or Jodie. They were his little things to keep for himself, whenever he allowed himself that rare moment of selfishness.

Both had come into his life and given him new perspectives and thrills, and more happy memories than he could barely handle.

The thought of giving up on the songwriting wasn’t too bad, though it rankled a bit on Adam’s pride. He was never one to give up on something. But he wanted his gift to Ronan to be sentimental and beautiful and something only Adam could do for Ronan.

He couldn’t think of anything else, but Adam accounted that for the fact that he was exhausted and covered and grease and oil.

A loud clatter jolted him out of his thoughts, and the creak and groaning sound of the garage door opening forced him out from under the Corolla.

Checking the clock, it was barely dusk, but it was already dark outside. A figure ducked in from the barely lifted garage door, letting in a cold breeze that made Adam shiver involuntarily.

“Parrish? Shitdamn, if you’re here working on a Close at Noon Wednesday, I’m gonna fucking flip.”

Something felt odd about Adam’s face. He saw Ronan step into the light before he realized that what was off about his face was that he was grinning. He pushed himself to stand, patting himself down from whatever dirt had clung to him. When he looked at Ronan, he made sure to look expectant. “Flip ahead, Lynch.”

Ronan indulged with his own grin, making dramatic flipping motions that made Adam want to laugh. He didn’t. Instead, he pulled off his gloves to wipe the grease from his arms, tight-lipped as some of it refused to come off. Slowly, the wet rag in his hands became dirtied.

To keep things casual as he turned his back to Ronan, he said, “People get car troubles during the holidays too. You one of ‘em or are you just here to flip?”

He heard shuffling over his shoulder. When he looked, he saw Ronan peering into the tinted windows of the Toyota Corolla. “Well, that,” answered Ronan, very obviously not-looking at Adam as he talked. “And to ask if you have any plans tomorrow.”

Adam’s expression sobered at this admission. Ronan looked up from the car, looking expectant and a little smug.

Adam refused to jump to conclusions. Though he was hopeful, and though he knew Ronan was the confrontational type, it wouldn’t hurt to be a bit cautious. He threw the rag down the table and approached Ronan, stopping just an arm’s length in front of him. “It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow.”

“Right, and your parents would be preparing some kind of ass-backwards extravagant dinner for Thanksgiving somehow?” Ronan countered flatly leaning against the Corolla. Adam raised a brow at all the posturing and barbs, the blank look on Ronan’s face unusual but unsurprising. Ronan was always uncertain of their boundaries, though Adam always assured him that his poverty was better joked about than taboo between them.

That didn’t mean Adam could let him get away without a few of his own punches.

“What’s your point, Lynch?”

The _Lynch_ was the only barb Adam could throw back in desperation, really. It was hard to pull punches at a boy who made his own weaknesses his strengths. He couldn’t find anything demeaning about Ronan Lynch if he tried. He and Ronan were familiar enough that calling Ronan by his last name would be an oddly formal affair.

That and Ronan was extremely easy to rile up.

Ronan’s shoulders predictably tensed the moment Adam delivered the question. He straightened, mimicking Adam’s stance, then shoved his hands into his pockets. His eyes were steadily fixed on Adam’s, and that was exactly Adam’s downfall. “Fuck, alright,” he hissed, looking earnest and awkward. “Mom told me to invite you over. To dinner, tomorrow night.”

Subconsciously, Adam had already agreed to this the moment Ronan met his eyes. Sure, he could have convinced himself that it was on Aurora’s plea that he wanted to go, that he didn’t really have any other plans, or that it was really because he genuinely wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving over with the Lynch family, but this wasn’t just something he could deny.

There was one teensy tiny little problem to this.

Adam sighed, averting his gaze, stepping away from Ronan. He could just lie to his mother. Tell her that he found some odd job at the local library or that some other co-worker here at the auto shop offered up his shift for the holidays. It could hold up.

Yes, it could. It _should_ , he thought to himself.

When he looked back at Ronan, Adam felt more determined. Ronan looked even more uncertain now that he’d seen Adam falter a bit, as if he hadn’t counted on Adam agreeing now that there was some doubt involved. Adam would go anywhere with Ronan as long as the other boy wanted him there. Scrambling to reassure, Adam’s voice cracked when he said, “Alright.” Clearing his throat, he added, “I’ll meet you at the Lyric?”

Ronan stood stock still for a second, processing the information, blinked twice, and then grinned. Adam shook his head fondly as the other boy threw his hands up in wonder.

“No.” With a single, breathless, delighted syllable, Ronan Lynch plucked at something in Adam’s chest. Adam couldn’t help smiling like a fool. “No, I’ll pick you up around six.”

* * *

 

The BMW was idle on the other side of the road when Adam’s cold, brisk stroll out of the trailer park ended. It was dusk, and thus, Adam could barely see in front of him. The road was lined and dimly lit orange under old and faulty streetlights. If Ronan had turned off the BMW’s headlights, Adam wouldn’t have been able to see parked by the fields.

When he approached the car, he heard could hear muffled music coming from the inside. It wasn’t Ronan’s usual electronic stuff, but something vaguely instrumental. As he crossed over to open the passenger side door, he was hit with the sound of wailing violins and haunting refrains. Irish music, Adam thought, the ambient music both familiar and foreign to him as he’d heard various pieces played from Matthew’s phone previously. Adam wordlessly slipped into his seat and shut the door behind him.

Ronan was wearing a beanie, was what Adam first noticed as he grabbed his seatbelt. The second thing was that his nose was a bit pink and that the gray of his sweater was a nice contrast against the color of his eyes as he glanced across the road. Just then, Ronan looked at him, seeming restless but still in his seat, like he could jump out of his skin no matter how it clung to him. His voice was gruff when he said, “Took you long enough. Had trouble getting out?”

Adam shrugged. Ronan pulled out of the shoulder and turned them around as soon as Adam closed the door, steering the car towards Henrietta. “I’m alright for the rest of the evening,” Adam informed him. “All she said was that I shouldn’t wake Dad up if I do get home late.”

Silence.

What Adam didn’t say, and what Ronan didn’t ask about, was whether or not Jodie Parrish knew that her son was going to have Thanksgiving dinner with another family that evening. Adam glanced at Ronan, uneasy with the feeling of not knowing how Ronan would react to something.

On the one hand, Ronan hated deceit of any kind.

On the other hand, Ronan had a deep-seated hatred for Adam’s parents.

It was a stalemate that set Adam on edge. Though he didn’t lie to Ronan, Adam didn’t know how Ronan would react to him lying to his own parents.

“Mom doesn’t know. Neither of them do,” Adam said, just to clarify, just to reassure himself, just to see how Ronan would react. He didn’t need to clarify on what he meant by saying that, because he knew that Ronan knew what he meant. The lessons, the lockbox, Chainsaw, the music, the Lynches, _this_. His parents knew nothing.

Ronan didn’t respond, didn’t even glance at Adam. It was as if Adam hadn’t spoken. Adam knew what it meant and it relieved him. That he lied to his mother didn’t change anything, Adam was still free for the rest of the evening, he was still having  Thanksgiving over at the Barns and would not be getting beaten for it once he got home.

It did actually change something and it changed nothing, Adam thought. Ronan hated lies but he didn’t care if it was aimed at Adam’s parents. Ronan hated lies but didn’t care that his and Adam’s friendship was the biggest secret Adam’s ever kept from the two people that had previously been Adam’s biggest secret.

Secrets and lies were different.

As Ronan cracked the windows open when they reached the dark and empty freeway that lead up to the valleys of Singer’s Falls, Adam didn’t think it mattered all that much.

* * *

 

This was the first Thanksgiving Adam had ever legitimately celebrated and, because he was celebrating it with a family he’d only come to know months ago, it was a bit relieving to know that it felt like any other meal spent with the Lynches (minus Declan, who decided to spend his Thanksgiving with Ashley’s family this year).

There wasn’t a big turkey dinner, like Adam had expected, but there were tons of meals with vegetables and ingredients the Lynches no doubt grew on their own property. The house smelled of spices and fruits and was warm enough for Adam that he had to shrug off the jacket Ronan had let him borrow when they walked out from the BMW to the porch.

Adam and the Lynch brothers helped prepare the table while Niall took to preparing the fireplace in the living room.

Dinner with the Lynches was, as always, a jovial experience, full of laughter and jokes and odd anecdotes of Niall’s childhood in Belfast and of his and Aurora’s meeting  at a mixer in UVA.

“He wouldn’t shut up, kept stumbling over words and I couldn’t get a single word in to tell him that his accent was slurring everything too much to be understandable. At some point, he started English conversations then ended in Irish, it was _ridiculous_ ,” Aurora recalled. She rolled her eyes as Niall wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in to give her cheek a scruffy kiss but she didn’t complain or pull away. Matthew laughed, Ronan gagged, and Adam smiled as Aurora swatted away her husband. Niall pulled back to give her a fond and cheeky smile, his ears pink.

At this tooth-rotting display of love, Ronan interjected, looking flatly at his mother, “He also apparently wouldn’t leave until he was _certain_ you got back to your dorms safely _,_  because _is maith leis tú_.” This last part was said with a honey-sweet voice that  resulted in Niall childishly kicking at his son’s feet under the table. Aurora nodded sagely at this, as if her husband and middle child’s squabbles weren’t the least bit unusual and started to recount the Tale of the Mixer as they ate. Matthew seemed enthralled by the tales despite seeming to have heard it many times already. Adam was mildly distracted the whole time, as his brain replayed the Irish words said in Ronan’s voice over and over.

 

After dinner, the teens collectively helped with loading dishes into the dishwasher and scrubbing pots. Aurora was thankful for it, teasing her boys as she pointed out that they never helped her when Adam wasn’t around. Ronan took to throwing the dishrag at her general direction whenever she passed by them with that amused look on her face and she didn’t seem to mind this one bit. Matthew seemed to work over Ronan’s throws as if this was a normal occurrence.

They settled out around the fireplace when the dishes were done, the radio playing low in the background, most of it drowned out by the crackle of the wood. Niall brought out a six pack of cheap beer and started recounting old fumblings back when he first moved to America with the excuse of OJT for some business that Adam didn’t hear him mention or didn’t mention at all, not knowing what some American holidays stood for and some misunderstandings with his English vocabulary. Matthew laughed at all the right times, and Ronan and Aurora took to pitching in angles that Niall forgot while Adam asked practical questions to urge the man on.

Adam took to nursing an open can of beer as he listened, not even attempting to look like he was drinking any of it. After his first beer, Ronan wordlessly extended his hand for Adam’s and Adam gave it to him, never mind that Ronan would have to sober up to drive them back to Antietam later that evening.

* * *

 

Adam minutely glanced at the clock as Matthew, Niall, and Aurora finished cleaning up the beer cans and Tupperware boxes full of sweetened fruit. Unused as he was to a lax schedule, Adam tried to measure the amount of time he thought appropriate after most of the festivities. Despite his mother giving him the benefit of the doubt that Robert wouldn’t be awake when he got home, he wanted it to at least go home at a sensible time if Robert ever got up to see Adam sneaking back in.

He tried not to fidget in his impatience and awkwardness, but there was a thread between his fingers from the ratty sweater he was wearing, and the cuff was beginning to unravel. He felt listless, itched to help, to do something other than sit there and wait for Ronan to come back from his potty break, but Niall and Aurora had put in that tag-team effort to turn him down whenever he asked if they needed help. Matthew gave him an apologetic smile over their shoulders but didn’t offer him anything to help with either.

Internally, Adam felt a bit bitter. He felt like they knew, but Ronan and Matthew have reassured him that they hadn’t told Aurora and Niall anything about Adam’s familial situation. _Surely_ , Adam thought, surely they would have slipped on something in passing. Either that or it was obvious to the couple in the way Adam thought it was obvious to Ronan.

Ronan stepped back into the living room, casually zipping up his fly as Niall jostled his shoulder in passing. He seemed less flushed, making a face at his father as he stepped into the living room, still the softer version of the Ronan that Adam always saw around the Barns. He stood by the entryway, looking at the time just as Adam had. Turning to look at Adam, Ronan fished his car keys out of his pocket and made his way to the front door.

Adam scrambled to follow.

“Are you sure you’re sober enough? I can just make my own way back,” Adam asked, his voice low and concerned. Ronan looked at Adam as he shrugged on his jacket and stomped on his boots, his face impassive despite being flushed.

Adam couldn’t determine whether the flush was because of the cold temperature by the entryway, the four cans of beer Ronan drank, or something else, hence his insistence. Nevertheless, Ronan looked nice, his eyes blue, his sweater a light gray, and his cheeks flushed pink.

Ronan nodded his answer at a still uncertain Adam, and slipped out of the house before he could protest any further. Adam sighed and leaned down to stuff his socked feet into his beat-up sneakers, his mind running a mile a minute.

He hadn’t minded that the Lynches drank, and the Lynches didn’t mind that he didn’t drink, but the sight of beer cans and bottles and the sharp smell of it in the air was enough to set Adam’s nerves on edge. He felt ashamed that he had to watch for jerky movements, signs of anger and aggravation aimed at him. The Lynches, as he’d grown to know, were fairly gentle people. It was as if they were different species and as long as Adam fought to avoid flinching whenever someone moved too fast for him to notice, they would always be different species.

“Oh, look at the time,” he heard Aurora mumble from behind him. Adam cracked his knuckles, mindful of the back of his hand as he did so. Aurora looked to him at the sound. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thanks for the invite, Mrs. Lynch,” he said, a bashful smile in place. “Dinner was delicious, as always.”

Aurora beamed at the compliment, reaching out to pull Adam in a one-armed hug. She smelled vaguely of a flowery perfume and wood smoke. Adam liked it. She whispered, “You’re always welcome, dear.”

When she pulled away, Adam missed the warmth and the scent, but he kept it to himself. “Good night, Mrs. Lynch,” he said, moving to open the door.

“Oh, wait!” Aurora piped in, putting a gentle hand by Adam’s arm. Surprised, Adam shut the door again and looked to the older woman in askance.  Aurora gave him a brilliant smile and said, “I have something for you, dear. Come, I’ll show you.”

Adam faltered at the idea of Aurora giving him something. The Lynch family had already given so much, he wanted to protest. But then Aurora waved him over from where she was, by the door to a room beside the staircase. Adam scrambled to follow, giving into the idea that he would always be grateful of Aurora Lynch.

The room, like all the rooms inside the Lynch household, was a room out of a storybook. It was a mashed together concept of a library, an office, and a den. Adam had never seen such things before, but with the combination of Gansey’s space in Monmouth and the Aglionby library, he though he knew what he’d just walked into.

There were racks full of vinyl records, a desk littered with newspapers, Sudoku sheets, and music sheets, a torn swivel chair. The couch had a pile of folded blankets, and the books, oh. If they weren’t in shelves, they were stacked on the floor by the desk, or stood by the floor next to the shelves, the bookends removed as if this line was one of the more frequently used line-up of books.

Aurora breezed pass the mess and straight for one of the boxes in the back, holding onto the gray, metal filing cabinet to balance herself. From above, Adam heard the sounds of footsteps, reminding him that Matthew and Niall were upstairs.

He took a step back and peered down the hallway towards the front door, catching Ronan glancing in through the windows. He mouthed, _be there in a sec_ , and went back into the office/library once he saw the other boy nod his consent.

Aurora unceremoniously lifted a carton, and Adam fumbled to help her with it. She waved off his help and dusted off the lid once she put it on the couch. She patted for the seat next to the box, “Sit, sit.” Adam conceded, sitting by the edge of his seat.

She lifted the lid, revealing the various tops of fairly thick paperbacks, some nearing brown in color while some popped out white and new. A few, he could see, were worn and curved by the spine, most likely the frequently read copies. There was a smile in Aurora’s voice as she announced, “Niall and I’re going to the UK this Christmas, and I wanted to give you these myself in case I forgot.”

Adam took a moment to process that statement, gaping down at the contents of the box. Gingerly, he asked, “Can I…?” He gestured to the box. Aurora nodded, pushing it a little more towards him.

Careful not to let his fingers shake, he pulled one out of the pile and examined it. The spine was cracked and bent, the pages opening on certain pages. It was obviously a book that the Lynches often cracked open.

“I’ve compiled all my favorites from the ones Ronan shared with me thinking it’ll interest me. He was right, that perceptive boy.” Aurora explained fondly, her eyes seeming to search Adam’s face for a reaction of some kind. Adam let himself smile and nod. Ronan really was perceptive. “From what I’ve heard from Ronan and Gansey, you seem like you always want your hands and eyes on something. Something to think about, I suppose. I know you don’t want to be exclusive to music.”

Adam felt his face flush, but the smile on his face stayed, widened even. He felt his breathing hitch a bit. Biting his bottom lip, he tried to control the welling of tears. “Thank you,” he said, barely a whisper. “This… it means a lot, Mrs. Lynch. Really.”

Aurora cooed, a her eyes watery. “Come here,” she said, opening her arms for a hug. Adam put the book down inside the box, carefully, before wrapping his arms around her. She smoothed a hand in his hair, pressing a kiss on his temple.

Adam tried not to cry.

Aurora put pressure on his shoulders, but before Adam could pull any further away, she leaned in for one last kiss on his forehead and patted his cheek as she got up and out of the office/library. “Get on home now, you can drop this box off to the Lyric, if you like.”

Adam nodded, thanking her profusely until she put a finger to his lips to keep him quiet. The smile on her face was as grateful as he felt.

“Good night, Adam,” she told him one last time as she slipped up the stairs. Adam hefted the box to his hip and opened the door with one hand.

The cold air felt good on his face, on his eyes too as he blinked back a few of the tears he couldn’t blink away earlier. Adam took a few moments to adjust to the temperature before closing the door behind him.

Ronan was fumbling with his phone, staring out over the porch, bathed white in moonlight and the yellow in the lights from the porch; a steadily contrasted painting of blues and purples, and yellows and browns. The field beyond them looked darker, lacking its lush look as autumn barged through Virginia. The treeline surrounding and beyond the property was haunting, black cracks against a dark blue sky that was littered with stars. There were fireflies littering the fields.

The scenery and Ronan might have taken Adam’s breath away if he wasn’t already struggling to keep his breathing normal.

Ronan turned, hurriedly shoving his phone into his jacket. His eyes, or the white flashes that were the impressions of them, flickered briefly to the box by Adam’s hip. He didn’t comment on it, or Adam’s silence. Instead, he walked off the porch.

Adam followed, his pace lazy and leisurely. He was as good with the cold as much as Ronan was with the heat, which was not much at all. But the warmth that sank into his bones in the hours he spent in front of the Lynch household’s fireplace and the seconds in Aurora’s arms  kept him from shivering against the November chill.

This time, the car didn’t take off the moment Adam shut his door. Adam sat in the passenger side seat, the box heavy on his lap but grounding and comforting, and Ronan sat next to him, silent.

Adam gave him a curious look, and Ronan returned it with an uncertain look of his own.

“What?” Adam asked.

Ronan, surprisingly, fidgeted in his seat at this. He answered with his own question, “You said you were okay for the rest of the night, right?”

Adam considered the fidgeting, the early Christmas gift, considered every event in the night, not looking Ronan in the face as he thought about it. He looked at the red numbers flashing on the dashboard.

10:27.

Ronan wanted Adam to spend more time with him that night for whatever reason, and to say that Adam was flattered and ecstatic inside was a complete understatement.

He nodded assent, flicking a look at Ronan’s outline in the darkness inside the car. “Do you have anywhere particular in mind? Anything local is closed down right now,” Adam told him.

Ronan shrugged. The awkwardness in the one movement was laughable but Adam couldn’t do anything other than grin at it.

They stayed in the warmth of the car, sitting in silence for a few more moments. Adam ran his thumb over the edge of the box’s lid, letting Ronan think it through, content with the silence and the moment to take a break more than anything.

“The lake should look amazing right now.” Ronan’s words were barely above a whisper.

Adam remembered the afternoon they spent by that lake the previous summer, happy with knowing that Ronan would only see it if the other boy looked, knowing that Ronan would see it because he always looked. Adam looked back, and saw Ronan’s little smile, that same shy one that always made him look softer.

“Let’s go.”

 

Adam was breathless with clumsy laughter as he clutched the hem of Ronan’s knitted sweater, trusting the taller boy to lead him to the pond as they fumbled around in the dark woods. There were fireflies flicking by here and there, but they weren’t enough to light the way in the leafless and branchy underbrush. Their shoes made loud crunches as they stepped on dead leaves

Ronan kept his hand by Adam’s arm, pulling him along. “There’s a root there, careful,” he mumbled standing still for a moment as he made sure Adam didn’t trip over said root, unlike the last couple of times.

The trek to the lake is different this time, somehow a more intimate affair with the fireflies and Ronan’s hand on his arm. The thought sent a thrill through him, his happiness so palpable that he almost forgot all of his worries. It wasn’t terrifying. Actually, it was anxiety-inducing. He reminded himself he was off the hook for the evening, that neither Robert nor Jodie would be up when he got home that night.

Ronan leaned into his space and whispered, “We’re here.” It was unnecessary since it was only the two of them in the woods, but Adam relished in it anyway, grinning as Ronan did before looking over the taller boy’s shoulder.

Ronan had proven, yet again, how truthful his words were. The lake did look amazing, and it still held that sacred feeling to it from when Adam first stepped into the clearing. He clutched tighter at the fabric of Ronan’s sweater, pulling him closer, knuckles making contact with the skin on the small of Ronan’s back, and it was almost enough to distract him from the view.

Adam kept his face awed and his eyes on the sight as if he didn’t just feel Ronan shiver against him.

The fireflies flew right over the water and the plants, causing ripples here and rustling the few surviving leaves there. The lake was a breathing, moving mirror reflecting the starry night sky and the black frame of the bare tree surrounding it, and Ronan’s skin felt so warm against Adam’s knuckles, it felt nice and—

Adam pulled his hand free from Ronan’s sweater, stepping aside to lead the way to the dock. From behind him, he heard Ronan take a deep breath. He tried not to think too much of it.

“So those books,” Adam piped, sitting when he reached the edge of the dock, his sneakers barely reaching the surface of the lake below. Ronan sat down beside him, within arm’s reach, observing Adam carefully. “Which one would you recommend I read first?”

Ronan took a moment to contemplate for a bit, averting his gaze so that he was staring across the lake instead of into Adam’s eyes. Eventually he remarked, “That depends on what you actually like. If you’re into those kinds of books with plots so _benignly_ stretched out that you forget character motives, you’re shit out of luck, man.”

“Of course not,” Adam reassured.

Ronan nodded sagely, closing his eyes for extra effect. Adam let out a soft laugh.

“So?”

Ronan was silent again, then, “We’ll start small. There’s this coming-of-age book I want you to try. Did Mom tell you you could put the box in the Lyric?”

Adam nodded.

“Then I’ll drop it off and leave you with the copy before taking you home,” he concluded. When Ronan met Adam’s eyes again, Adam became aware of two things: he had been staring too long at Ronan Lynch and had just just been caught in the act, and that he was looking forward to reading whatever Ronan had in mind. Anticipation usually came with anxiety, so this was a first.

“What’s it about?”

Ronan told him. It was a tale of two boys  becoming friends during the summer and the years they spent afterwards. It had families, dogs, cherry red pickup trucks, and poetry. It sounded like a good summer story, and it held a bit of sentimental value granted that he met Ronan around summer too, but he didn’t say anything about that.

“It’s not really a big quest plot like most books,” he told Adam. “It’s really just the main character’s self-discoveries. Promise, Matthew cried when he finished that book, and Gansey was red-eyed the morning he returned it to me. Mom was emotional about it too.”

When Adam said, “I’m excited already,” he was still a bit surprised to find that he meant it.

Ronan grinned then, the mischievous glint in his eyes softened by something else Adam couldn’t put a word to. “When you finish it, give it to the maggot. We’ll all compare notes and shit, maybe a few tissues.”

Adam snorted at that. “You cried about it too?”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “I’m big enough to admit that I cry about emotional things sometimes.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Ronan shrugged, which was as close as Adam could get to Ronan openly admitting that he cried about a lot.

Eventually, in the silence that came after, Adam became conscious of the fact that Ronan was leaning backwards to watch the night sky,  his arm placed somewhere behind Adam near enough that Adam felt the warmth. Adam’s foot was kicking at Ronan’s over the edge, their legs knocking against the edge of the docks, ankles accidentally locking together.

It was Ronan who broke their silence after a few more moments. “I wanna try a game,” he started. His gazed flickered over to Adam.

“Okay.”

“I’ll tell you something about myself and you’ll have to tell me if it’s true or if I’m just messing with you.”

Adam raised a brow at this. He laughed, “I thought you didn’t lie.”

Ronan made a face at this then smirked, “Just because I’m telling you something true doesn’t mean it’s the whole story.”

Adam pulled a knee up on the dock, hugging it close to his chest and resting his cheek on top. “If I guess right?”

“I’ll tell you the whole story,” Ronan surmised.

“And if I get it wrong?”

“I don’t and I’ll give you something else. We’ll take turns.”

Adam didn’t remember agreeing to anything yet but kept his mouth shut because he would go along anything Ronan asked him to.

Ronan scratched at his cheek. “I’ll start first,” he said, his face calm as he thought about what he could share.

Adam waited.

“I don’t know how to play the bagpipes,” Ronan said, grinning at Adam.

“Easy. That’s a blatant omission, Ronan Lynch. There are many types of bagpipes,” Adam retorted. Growing up around music and the Irish culture and language Niall taught his boys, Adam thought it would be nearly impossible if Ronan didn’t play the bagpipes at any point in his life.

Ronan laughed, “Nothing gets past you, genius. Alright, yeah, I know how to. Scottish and uilleann. Used to join contests ‘n shit as a kid.”

Adam laughed at that mental image, Ronan’s small chubby cheeks red as he did what was supposed to be his best. Ronan was always a fierce musician, but it would be hard to look fierce with some kind of wailing plaid monstrosity shoved under your armpit.

Ronan bumped their shoulders together, which only made Adam laugh a little harder. “It’s not that funny. Your turn, asshole.”

“Sure, okay,” Adam said between breaths. He thought of things about himself that weren’t all about the trailer park and working hours. There was school and co-workers’ antics.

Once he settled on a happy one, he said, “I used to be in the glee club in elementary.”

Ronan side-eyed him. Adam scoffed in indignation and elbowed the other boy as Ronan raised a brow at him in disbelief. Rather nasally, and with an obnoxiously accurate Henrietta accent, he teased, “ _I’m not really a decent singer_. Please, that’s such a lie, Parrish.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “You’re amusing when you think you’re right, Lynch.”

It took a few seconds to process before Ronan spluttered, going over facts about how Adam had terrible stage freight and over fifteen curse words. Adam’s shoulders shook in an effort to keep his laughter inside.

“Next one. Just, you’re wrong. Your complaining won’t get you nowhere, deal with it,” Adam cut in with a smug grin. Again, Ronan bumped their shoulders, this time not-so gently. Adam laughed out loud.

They continued like that, Ronan telling easy to tell facts about himself while Adam spewed one unbelievable fact after the other. It wasn’t often that Ronan got Adam’s right, and it was rare that Adam got Ronan’s wrong.

Yes, Adam really did use to play in the little leagues. No, Ronan didn’t get his first bloody nose from Declan, but from Matthew. Adam didn’t know how to drive. Ronan didn’t know how to rap. No, Adam didn’t actually  speak to all animals, just ravens that passed him by in particular. Yes, Ronan actually cried when eating chicken as a kid because it was delicious but it was once also one of his pets. Adam once had a fire ant crawl into his ear in the middle of the night.

It was an evening full of moments spent learning about each other, laughter and anecdotes and the sound of the water gurgling around the dock legs, Ronan’s arm pressed against the small of Adam’s back, and when they made their fumbling way back to the BMW in an effort to avoid the now unbearable November air, Adam remembered what he would be going home to and let the mixture of happiness and dread  war inside him.

* * *

 

Adam’s palm was sweaty against the smooth  cover of the paperback Ronan picked out for him. In the dark, he couldn’t make out the title, and the letters weren’t embossed like the one he examined in front of Aurora earlier. It was dark blue and had white markings all around it and he couldn’t wait to start reading it.

They were parked in front of the trailer park now, the dashboard clock telling Adam that it was already a few strokes after midnight, and despite his earlier thoughts and fears, Adam didn’t make a move to step out of the vehicle just yet.

He had to go.

“You don’t have to go,” Ronan reassured him. But Adam did, and that was beside the point.

He didn’t respond to the reassurance, fearing the fact that he didn’t know whether he should agree to the thought of not having to come back to this or not. Adam still didn’t move to get out. His hands grasped at the spine of the paperback Ronan gave him,  his breath caught at his throat, his mind clinging desperately to all the moments accumulated from an evening spent with the Lynches while he could.

He had to go.

Adam reached for the door and got out.

“Thanks, I guess I’ll see you later,” Adam told him, but it sounded wrong when it came out of his mouth.

When he looked at Ronan, took in the emotion swelling in those blue eyes that looked back, the way he bent towards Adam’s side of the car as if he wanted to reach out but restrained himself by clutching the steering wheel, Adam’s heart clenched. The sounds of crickets were almost as deafening as his hammering heartbeat from where they were coming from the field across the road. Vaguely, he remembered the BMW being parked there earlier that evening and it felt like a million years since then.

He had to go.

“It was fun getting to know a lot about you,” Adam said, and felt his heart leap into his throat. Why had he told Ronan that?

Ronan’s expression softened, a smile just by the edge of his lips. “Same here. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Adam went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Is maith leis tú_ means _he likes you_ in Gaelic!
> 
> i'm so sorry for taking so long but, again, this is a longer chapter so??? idk, take from that what you will.
> 
> a big extension of kudos to my sister's friend. apparently her friend shares the same history of crying-while-eating-chicken as ronan so, lmao, know that your story is out there.
> 
> anything else? hm, yes, actually, school is going to start this august 2nd so i'm hoping to finish this up by then. only a few chapters more and uhhhh... yeah.
> 
> [right here](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/147740096805) is the promo post. tags make me super happy so, y'all shy ones don't need to comment, just reblog and tag and i'll be super ecstatic! [here](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/tagged/lynch-lyric) would be any and all LL related stuff I post on my blog, even the shitposts so lol. and uh, yeah. comments are super appreciated!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a week, he would be one step closer to freedom.

Around the last day before Christmas break, the gang, minus Matthew, came to this year’s Aglionby Holiday Bash (AHB).

The past few weeks had been hectic at Aglionby Academy: boys packing up for the holidays, throwing out plans here and there, some of them rushing to fill out projects they’d yet to pass to their respective teachers. Aglionby was a hive full of boys and staff within those weeks. Noah had enough bruises and aches just to show how many times he’d been shoved to the side on accident in the hallways. This had gotten Gansey and Adam concerned, but both Noah and Ronan waved them off, claiming that the older boy just bruised easily.

(Adam was inclined to believe so, considering Noah’s pale skin, but that didn’t lessen the concern.)

Somehow though, in the midst of all the chaos and lax scheduling, Aglionby still managed to find a chance to sneak in the most unnecessary thing Adam had ever had the pleasure of knowing about.

This was how it had gone: the Soft Rich Fuckers (a sort of nickname Adam had picked up from home and utilized accordingly for the Student Council) decided that it would be fitting to spend all their extra money for a “joyful parting” before the holidays stole them away from the halls of ever-delightful Aglionby Academy.

Of course, not caring, neither Adam nor Ronan took part in any of this. Noah thought it was great, of course, but he thought it needed less suit-and-tie and more glow sticks. Blue, once informed, agreed with Adam and Ronan but had seemed a little irked when she _had_ been informed.

The AHB was going to be held around 4 to however long the Aglionby students could hold out. It was going to be suit-and-tie and two whole hours of ceremony and it left a bad taste in Adam’s mouth. Absolutely _no one_ wanted to go.

So of course, Gansey was obligated to go.

They were in the Lyric on a Wednesday afternoon when they found this out.

Adam was not all surprised by this development, and neither were Ronan and Noah.

Ronan kept playing a wandering tune on Blue’s ukulele, and Noah was already extending a hand for Gansey’s phone to see what text had made Gansey groan and announce such a thing. Blue looked over his shoulder.

A boy from the journalism club by the name of Henry Cheng had “invited” dear Richard C. Gansey the Third, and by extension, Ronan , Blue, Noah, and Adam to the AHB via text. It was a wonder that Gansey had even saved the number in his phone, but judging by the changed contact name, Adam guessed that Gansey and Henry Cheng were close.

 

 

“The fuck does that mean,” Ronan demanded, so appalled by the idea of the AHB that he stopped plucking at whatever song he was playing on the ukulele when Blue and Noah finished narrating the text messages. He gripped the neck of the instrument between two fingers and only Gansey seemed concerned with how it might slip and crash to the floor.

Blue gave Gansey a smug look, which earned her a tired sigh. Gansey ran a hand through his hair and answered, “That means Henry was roped into this and that if he’s suffering through it, then so should I. Of course I would, especially if he asked. It’s only fair. At the very least, he had enough hindsight to know that if I’m coming, you all are too.”

Blue nodded sagely at this, deciding to be generous with her smug look and giving it out to everyone else, as if she had been expecting this from the start.

And of course they would all come with him to the AHB. It was completely out of the question to just let Gansey do it on his own, even if Gansey was just doing it for Henry. Adam was a bit surprised that they didn’t have to ask each other if they wanted to, and was even more surprised that he’d agreed too.

* * *

 

Once the two-hour long ceremony by Principal Child was over, Noah was the one to suggest that they all just ditch and for once, Adam agreed.

(Adam had been agreeing to a lot lately.)

When Gansey emerged from the crowd on the way out, his blazer was buttoned up wrong, revealing the sweater hidden underneath, and his hair was a ruin.

“Had to thank Henry for the invite,” he shouted over the loud music. Adam didn’t think Gansey was talking to him, so he didn’t respond. The halls, as opposed to where they were holding the party inside the lunch hall, were deathly silent when they got out. They didn’t speak to each other, too busy shrugging on coats and jackets over their semi-formal clothes to ward off the cold weather.

 

They all gathered around in the space between the BMW and the Mustang in the parking lot, everyone shivering in the cold December evening. Adam’s ears strained to hear the chattering of Noah’s teeth from where he stood by the Mustang’s passenger side door.

“Monmouth, anyone?” asked Gansey.

Ronan and Noah both shouted, “Pass.”

Blue, still burrowed inside Gansey’s jacket despite wearing a sweater over her dress, agreed with them. “Monmouth doesn’t have any heating. And don’t even _think_ about Nino’s or Fox Way.”

Gansey grumbled something only Blue could hear, thus earning an elbow to the gut. The group, all at once, winced at the yelp Gansey let out, the three other boys having firsthand experience with Blue Sargent’s lethal elbow jabs.

Ronan fished a hand out from deep inside his jacket pocket and jingled a set of keys out in the space between them, looking like the cold temperature wasn’t even bothering him a little bit. Adam couldn’t help rolling his eyes at that, which earned him a snort coming from Blue’s direction.

“The Lyric then?”

They couldn’t scramble into their cars fast enough.

Riding shotgun in the BMW, while his fingers started regaining feeling by the heater, Adam saw Ronan grinning in his peripheral vision and couldn’t help but smile himself.

* * *

 

Adam was off work, out of school, and off his game on a whole lot of levels that he couldn’t understand, and it wasn’t a recent development.

It had been irking him a lot more recently, knowing that Christmas break would take over the hours he put in at Aglionby. Something kept prodding at him about it but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. He could call it being carefree but he didn’t know what he cared about so much before that he was free of now.

He’d taken to reading more, playing more music, completely shoving off the thoughts of even trying to make something musical as a gift for Ronan because it was impossible at this point. He was constantly muddled by thoughts and daydreams of sneaking out of his house in the middle of the night, meeting up with Ronan, and moving in to St. Agnes with nothing with him but a duffel bag full of things he couldn’t live without. None of this affected his jobs though; he took care of not being too distracted by menial thoughts like that so much that he wouldn’t be able to work properly. 

As Adam frowned down at the continuously dwindling amount of books he hadn’t read yet, his mind far away from the banter that his friends were having around him, the smell of air conditioning sharp in his nostrils, his body not one bit tired even though he’d been at work just earlier that morning, he realized that the only thing off was that he felt _safe_.

“That wasn’t how the scene was supposed to be read and you know it,” Blue’s voice rose, the argument she and Gansey were having coming to a stop as he struggled to remember the story he read half a year ago for the sake of arguing against her. Adam was brought out of his thoughts at the sound of her voice.

Adam didn’t catch what Ronan said in return as he leaned down to reach for a book, busy with shuffling through the box below the counter, but whatever he said caused a ruckus and a bunch of thrown notebooks across the room so surely it was just said to anger Blue further.

Adam violently bumped his head on the wood above the box when one of the notebooks landed behind him, and slowly stood to glare at a laughing Ronan. Or, at least Adam _pretended_ to glare as he watched the warmth on Ronan’s face.

Blue and Adam exchanged looks of equal disdain as Ronan cackled on.

Noah entered the room.

“Hey guys, would it be…” The older boy trailed off from the back room’s doorway, blinking at the aftermath of Ronan and Blue’s fight. Under one arm was his laptop, the other holding up his phone, screen displayed outward. “I’ll just ask later then?”

Gansey gave Ronan a disapproving look at that, picking up one of the notebooks from where he could reach. He smoothed down the pages as he spoke, “Really, Ronan Niall, you are _sixteen_. Behave like it.”

Ronan snorted derisively at this, waving the other boy as if he was nothing more than a fly. “I will if you do, old man.”

Adam shook his head at the two, his head aching worse with the movement, ignoring them in favor of Noah. “What was it you were gonna ask?”

The older teen approached him, sitting down by the cash register. The app on his phone was now obviously filming Ronan and Gansey’s petty fighting. Noah spoke to him but focused on filming his friends. “Just wanted to ask if you guys could answer any questions from the viewers, is all.”

Blue looked amused about this for some reason. Adam gave her a confused look.  

She grinned, looking at Adam but clearly talking to Noah. “You mean the people that adore Adam but doesn’t really care about.”

Adam made a noise of disagreement, but then Blue held her hand up to silence him. “ _Oh. Alright_ ,” she mocked, stretching her Henrietta accent a little too much to sound genuine.

The throwback from Adam’s reaction made him and Noah laugh.

Blue sidled up to the counter,  leaning on the wooden countertop beside Noah. “Ask away then, it’ll be better than watching two dicks fight each other.” Noah made a delighted noise just as Gansey squawked in indignation.

Plopping down the seat by the cash register, Noah put his laptop down and opened it. Adam squinted at the screen but could only make out the blue background and the twitter logo.

“Hey, everyone! It’s the Lyric’s wonderful, wonderful drummer Noah Czerny here!” Noah greeted the front facing camera of his phone, gesticulating wildly in his excitement. Adam shifted away from him slightly, not wanting to be on the screen just yet, if he could help it. “If y’all don’t mind the noise, Ronan and Gansey are having a bit of a spat over the counter. But hey, I’ll be answering questions that you sent in via the tag. So, without further ado!”

“Richard keeps saying that Jane is writing her own songs,” Noah recited haltingly. Ronan and Gansey stopped bickering to listen, Ronan’s hand stopping mid-air as if to swipe at Gansey. “When are you going to film videos about it?”

Adam made a confused sound. They’ve been practicing Blue’s music for days now recording sessions on Noah’s phone. Why would they have to film videos about it?

“That was a question from _coalstclaire_. With a C-O-A-L, not C-O-L-E just to be clear because I would freak the fuck out if it was from _the_ Cole St. Claire,” Noah added, his voice now its normal bubbly disposition so it was clear he was now talking to either the audience or everyone else in the room. He panned the camera to and fro as he filmed everyone’s reactions.

He filmed Blue’s scoff at the question, her obvious glaring at Gansey, her loud and enunciated answer of, “Well, _Richard_ shouldn’t advertise things that are still in pre-production.”

Gansey visibly winced at this, more likely for being called by his given name rather than for being scolded about spreading news of his girlfriend’s music.

Adam was able to tune out the rest of the questions and answers, choosing instead to observe his friends.

Blue and Ronan threw insults at each other and at Gansey with open vigor, much to Gansey’s chagrin. It seemed most of the questions were surrounding whatever Gansey told the audience with the edited videos, so none of them were pointed at their personal lives beyond the surface. Blue was cordial with answering questions, Gansey was professional, Noah flipped to the front-facing camera during intervals to answer questions himself and insert his long-winded two cents. But otherwise, Ronan and Adam remained silent.

“Ronan and Adam should sing more often,” Noah read off the last thing on the list.

He grinned, throwing a look at Ronan then at Adam, directing the camera accordingly. “I agree entirely. You guys _should_ sing more often. Together, preferably. You know, kill two birds with one stone. Your kind of like the audience’s dream team, and mine also, so why the fuck not, right? Thanks for that suggestion, _r1lke_.”

Adam tried not to fret when he felt his face heat up, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see if Ronan would react any. He didn’t. That wasn’t unusual. They had stayed silent for the most of the questions anyway, why not continue with the trend, right?

Adam personally wouldn’t mind doing duets with Ronan, remembering the last time they sang a song together.

 It’s been months since the open mic event, but Adam had only ever been singing duets with either Blue or Matthew for covers and original songs. If they eventually stumbled into an ensemble song, he and Ronan would be the backups, being the only two who could hold a low note. Matthew’s voice cracked too often when going too low as opposed to reaching high notes without any effort, and Noah couldn’t really hold any kind of note so they settled for it.

It was just another exception in the long run anyway, another thing he would go in blindly for Ronan Lynch.

Noah continued on after that, unperturbed by Adam and Ronan’s silence— no doubt used to it by now— and soon said goodbye to the audience. Adam wondered if Noah got their glances on film, and if it was as obvious to a camera as it was to him. He didn’t know if he hoped so if only to convince himself that he wasn’t imagining things or not, but he was sure that he wanted to find out if it was the former.

* * *

 

Gansey was the only one left behind with Ronan and Adam after their jamming session that Thursday evening, agreeing to stay behind a bit to spend time with the two with Blue’s promise that she’ll drop by at Monmouth after her shift at Nino’s.

There was something admirable in the way he tried to make logical theories on how learning music worked. A knot by his brow and concentration pressing his lips into a thin line, Gansey squinted at the way Adam’s fingers moved over the piano keys.

“I tried to learn piano as a child, you know,” he told Adam. There was a fond smile on Gansey’s face, Adam saw, when he gave the other boy a brief glance. “By the time I hit six, my father decided that I was a lost cause. They only ever tried again during the holidays. It’s become a bit of a tradition: humiliating me.”

Ronan hummed in acknowledgement from somewhere behind them. “I remember Helen telling me she’ll film it this year. I can’t wait.”

Adam didn’t have to look to see the exasperated look Gansey sent Ronan’s way. “I’m glad to know you’ll only use your phone to watch me get humiliated.”

“You know I love you, Dick.”

Adam stayed silent, his tongue heavy in his mouth, plunking down notes on the piano almost mindlessly. Curiously, he didn’t dread the oncoming thoughts of his own family traditions as compared to the heartwarming tone to Gansey’s.

He couldn’t remember the last time the Parrishes did anything blissfully festive together.

Actually, no, there was one vague festive memory, though technically, it was with Jodie’s mother, and thus, not with a Parrish. Adam was still little, he reckoned, around the age of three.

It was Halloween and she had managed the miraculous feat of willingly getting little Adam to shower and dress up. The memory was too vague and Adam was not the kind of child who liked sweets, but in his mind’s narrative, it was the promise of candy and an afternoon in Henrietta that got him rushing into the shower. When they were both ready, his grandmother draped a trimmed bed sheet on top of his head, shoved a bucket into his grimy little hands and, together, they hitched a ride with a few neighbors for a drive down to Henrietta’s suburbs and trick-or-treat.

Adam couldn’t recall his parents’ reactions, or if they even knew of this little trip his grandmother had dragged him into. The most he could recall was the warm tones against the chilly wind, his grandmother’s strong grip on his hand, and the candy they shared on the sidewalk near Antietam afterwards.

It was as dreamlike as the Barns were.

Remnants of the memory proved its credulity. The same trimmed sheet was the one on Adam’s own single bed to this day; the same bucket that held the most of the oily scraps he’d gathered nuts and bolts in was the one he gripped in his chaffing little hands; the same candy wrappers were the ones he had folded and tucked into the extra pockets of his new duct tape wallet.

He couldn’t remember when she died and how the news came to their dusty little double-wide, couldn’t remember if his grandmother had lived with them before or if she had just been visiting that day, but it was also the same grandmother that was cremated and tucked in an urn somewhere inside the house. She was nothing more than a faceless smile in Adam’s memory now.

“You okay, Adam?” asked Gansey, bringing him out of his thoughts.

Adam was suddenly aware of just how much his fingers were shaking. He folded his hands into his lap, picking at the non-existent oil beneath his fingernails. He did not answer Gansey’s question.

When enough time passed for Adam to answer, Gansey said, “Right.” His eyes were on Adam. Adam didn’t bother to meet them.

Behind them, Ronan asked loudly, “What are you going to try to play this Christmas? Maybe Parrish can help you with it.”

Adam looked over his shoulder, staring at Ronan, whose face was determined and grim. He gave Adam a nod. Adam turned to look at Gansey.

Gansey beamed at the idea, but Adam was too conscious of the fact that his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I guess I could break down the tradition by being semi-decent.”

* * *

 

There were moments in life that were forgettable. Moments that couldn’t completely fade out in memory but would stay inside small details. An afternoon spent in Aglionby’s libraries would isolate itself inside the warmth of Ronan’s knees pressed up against his below the table, the tick, tick, ticking of Ronan’s fingernail on Adam’s beat up pencil case, the color of the librarian’s coat catching Adam’s eye from across the room.

A regular Monday evening— _a week before Christmas_ , his voice in the back of his head reminded him—was spent at the convenient store and would be forgotten easier than the afternoons in the library if his mind wasn’t so fully enraptured by written words and details on a page. His memories of checking and bagging items and counting change would be replaced by this: a misty evening somewhere in the UK, a small boy clad stolen gardener clothes, and a brooch stolen from an ancient tomb hidden inside the graveyard he grew up in.

Adam’s nose was nearly buried at the spine of his book, eyes a steady pace as his fingers restlessly fiddled with the edge of the page he was waiting to turn. The boy was on the verge of learning how to invisible; the boy was on the verge of getting into trouble. His ghost-witch companion was not any help.

The convenient store’s doors opened, letting in the smell of cigarette smoke, car smoke, and the very loud sounds of two men shouting expletives at each other.

Adam jolted in his seat, cursing as he almost dropped the book, almost lost his page. He grabbed the folded piece of stationary paper he’d been using as a book mark and snapped the book shut.

Adam stuttered as he pushed the book behind the cash register and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Uh, do you need any he—wait, _Ronan_?”

Indeed, it was Ronan Lynch, flushed and disheveled, looking downright furious in the way that meant that he had just been rushing and he wasn’t very pleased about it. He wore the Lyric’s black shirt underneath a tennis jacket. From over Ronan’s shoulder, Adam could see Chester holding the swinging doors still, his mouth moving as if he were saying some things he’d rather Ronan didn’t hear.

Adam focused on his friend. “What is it? You look like shit.”

Ronan huffed and reached into his pocket, slamming it down the counter. Adam didn’t flinch.

It was Ronan’s phone. Adam blinked at it, uncomprehending.

Ronan huffed out, “Ramirez called. You can move in by next week.”

Those last six words took longer to process than usual but given that Ronan just strode into his workplace without even turning the BMW off, Adam thought it was justified. He stared at the phone on the counter, feeling like he was wading through molasses as his thoughts filled with increasing confusion and elation and fear and excitement.

“Rent’s not until next month,” Ronan added. His face looked uncertain now, his cheeks still flushed. The color of it caught Adam’s eyes when took the moment to look.

The words sunk in.

 _I can move out of the house by next week_.

Regaining feeling in his body always took its time. In this context, it was unfamiliar. He only ever froze like this when he’d been hit, trying to dispel the pain that would come after, his consciousness fleeing so that he could come back when the pain was manageable. This first thing he felt coming back to him were his hands, which flung out to grab at the counter-top so that he wouldn’t fall over. Then, feeling jumped back into his whole being and overwhelmed him all at once.

He felt as if he was smiling but it felt odd in a way that told him that he’d been smiling for longer than he could recall. He breathed in, couldn’t breathe out properly. He forcefully pushed it out,  took another breath, and then Adam was laughing and he didn’t know what to do with that. He felt one of his hands reach up to cover his mouth and felt his fingers brush against tears on his cheeks. He tried to hold in all the feelings inside himself, wanting it to stay there until the very last moment.

Adam looked at Ronan, and Ronan beamed back and suddenly, his presence there became the gateway that let out all the feelings he wanted to keep inside him and he sobbed.

Ronan scrambled to get around the counter, pulling Adam into a warm embrace. Adam grabbed hold, the pads of his fingers catching at the fabric of the tennis jacket, smearing his tears on Ronan’s shirt, muffling his sobs into Ronan’s collarbone as the taller boy ran a hand over his back for comfort. The odd mixture of elation, delight, dread, and confusion mashing together into one big ball of relief lodged itself into Adam’s chest and made it hard for him to breathe.

In a week, he would be one step closer to freedom.

This was a moment he could never forget.

* * *

 

In a week, the following would happen: Adam would get his pay checks, he would split the money from his own funds and the money he would use to pay his family’s bills, he would slowly and surely move his things from his old room to a duffel bag to Ronan’s backseat to his new room.

The Lynch family would squeeze into a BMW bringing luggage fit for two people going away for a whole week outside the country. The brothers would drive their parents to the airport in DC and give their farewells until the older Lynches return for the New Year.

Adam would move out of his home.

Adam would be celebrating Christmas at the Barns.

He looked around his room, noted the thinning wallpapers, scrutinized every detail on the posters he’d picked out on sales, inhaled the smell of a room that was his the moment he began speaking. Moth balls and laundry detergent and Downy fabric softener. Adam stared at the calendar propped on top of his drawer cabinet of clothes, staring at the highlighted, color-coded graph, his schedules an individual color dotted in each box.

His mind couldn’t comprehend the future even as he sat down his single bed and counted the seconds yet that have yet to tick by.

This was a room he would chose not to forget. It would be a reminder of his solidarity, that he could find strength, a way out of a situation he’d found himself in. He just had to let enough time pass, wait until his efforts were rewarded with results to his liking.

A knock on his door brought him out of his reverie. The broken lock didn’t resist his mother’s entry. She peered into his room, eyeing his prone form with caution.

“Dinner’s ready,” came his mother’s meek voice.

Adam committed the scene of normalcy into his memory and got up from his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can feel the ending coming, folks. just gotta get through chapter 16 then write that monster that i know chapter 17 will be. i hope it'll be as satisfying as i feel it'll be
> 
> as of the last time i updated, the views and kudos and comments really upped their games, folks, so to all the newbies, hi! and to all the oldies, i'm so sorry for having to get y'all to wait.
> 
>  
> 
> [for the shy ones, no need to comment, you can reblog the tumblr post and just tag away!](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/148230468365)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they drove away from the trailer park, Adam did not look back.

The days grew colder by the season and grew longer by the anticipation swirling around in Adam’s gut.

By Christmas, Adam would stop going home to the trailer park and stick to St. Agnes at Henrietta Proper. He would wake up in a room that didn’t have his parents just down the hall, where he could get home at any time he wanted as long as he had the keys. Every evening he would cycle from Boyd’s to St. Agnes without thinking about opening the door to his father’s fists.

Christmas could not come any sooner.

Adam had taken to salvaging all the extra shifts that his co-workers let go of in favor of pre-mature holiday celebrations, thus giving him a sound reason to stay out of the double-wide. Robert Parrish had yet to complain about whatever bill Adam hadn’t paid, and Jodie Parrish was clueless that he would be cutting off from them in an increasingly dwindling amount of days.

The mundane process of cycling and clocking in for work was enough to stave off the anticipation of the room soon-to-be-his, and that feeling of stagnation that always crawled under his skin whenever school let out for more than a week. Taking his breaks at the Lyric, with his friends, helped too.

He was content, secure and so far, unharmed and he was moving in to St. Agnes come Christmas morning.

But then, he hit a standstill on a Wednesday.

Wednesdays were days off for Adam. Having a day off usually gave him time to do other things like hang out with his friends, play more songs on the piano, or even read more books, but it was the holidays and, well...

Blue was staying home with her family, accommodating two more people in the confines of 300 Fox Way. One being Orla’s new conquest, and the other, well...

Apparently Maura Sargent herself had began dating some hunk named Gray from out of town, and Blue’d been trying to get a talk out of the man ever since the two started about a week ago, when they met at some gasoline station from a business trip of Maura’s. Blue told Adam that she would be dealing with this Gray dude, whatever that meant. Adam tried to keep the envy and disappointment to himself and nodded along to whatever Blue was plotting.

Noah, on the other hand, didn’t drive back to Woodsville for the holidays to visit his parents like Adam thought he would.

The Czernys, apparently, were atheists and weren’t the affectionate festive types unlike their eldest child, according to Ronan. This piece of information was relayed with the uniquely distinct disgusted tone that Ronan usually had in his voice when he addressed or even suggested a subject that had anything to do with the Parrishes’ treatment of their only child.

Adam supposed it made sense, in some level, that Noah wasn’t close with his parents. Noah had two sisters, both attending an all-girls school up in Maryland, where he’ll be going this Christmas instead. He was the perfect brother, Adam thought, but objectively not the perfect son. The little fact made him like Noah even more, in some sick way. There was an intimacy to not being the only person in a friend group that had shitty familial background, never mind that he kind of envied that Noah had his siblings.

And then there was Gansey, who would be driving up to DC with the Lynches that same Wednesday afternoon that Aurora and Niall were flying out of the country.

Adam had had a difficult time trying to get a solid outline of Gansey’s holiday trip home. After the last time they were open with each other, things became a bit tense between them again, and it seemed Gansey wanted some kind of buffer between him and Adam to discuss holiday plans at a length with.

Adam was wholly conscious of his efforts and wasn’t sure if he appreciated it or not.

So it seemed, his friends had plans and Adam had none that Wednesday. The facts were stacked against his favor and it was ultimately why he was just drifting across his holiday break, bored, lonely and struggling to do anything productive.  

With the Lynches meeting up with Gansey and Ronan at the Lyric around lunch time, Ronan decided to pass time by checking everything in the Lyric’s inventory. Adam had been playing the piano for the past few hours, starting up random conversations whenever the comfortable silence began to grow dull, telling himself over and over again that, at the very least, he would have Ronan.

"I should probably close up shop when they get here," came Ronan's dismissive tone.

Adam brought his hands away from the piano keys, turning around on the bench to give Ronan a look from where the other boy was checking the shelves for something by the shelves across the room, intentionally not looking to Adam for a reaction. As if Ronan didn't know that Adam had nothing to do despite already knowing Adam's schedule by heart, as if Adam wouldn't really expect anything out of today like he doesn't every other day he visits the Lyric just to see Ronan and the others.

Well Adam expected a great deal of things to transpire just by having the Lyric shut down for a day. He expected that he would go home with a book or two and confine himself inside his room, that the other two people inside the double-wide would forget he even existed for the rest of Wednesday. He expected that Ronan would take it back and decided to ask Adam to come with them to say goodbye to Niall and Aurora.

He also maybe expected the complete opposite of his first point, which was a thought he kept to himself.

What he didn’t expect was to hear himself say, “You don’t have to close it down. I can stay here.” The proposition was blurted out but Adam wasn’t surprised to know that he meant it.

Ronan being Ronan, he tried to wave away his offer as casually as he could, as if Adam usually offered up his free time like this and it was a bother. “It’s only for a few hours, I can just lock it all up. Don’t worry about it, Parrish.”

It grated on Adam’s nerves but he didn’t tell the other boy that just yet. Instead, Adam scowled and said, “It _is_ only a few hours. Just leave it to me.”

Ronan stared at him then, the troubled look on his face making Adam a bit anxious. He looked like the idea of leaving Adam alone in the Lyric pained him. Then, he turned on his heel and disappeared inside the backroom.

Adam shrugged and returned to randomly pressing keys on the piano until he could mash up a bunch of songs that came to mind.

 

They didn’t talk about it again until lunch time ticked by, the cars idled in front of the store, and Ronan was standing somewhere between the front door and where Adam was still stubbornly seated on the piano bench near the counter.

Grumbling something under his breath, Ronan turned to glare at Adam, then tossed something up in the air.

Adam caught it, felt the weight of it in his palm, knowing each key and which door it unlocked inside the store. The single key ring held the three keys for the backroom, the front door, and the cash register and a cheap little guitar keyring.

“You’re just doing this because you want piano access, aren’t you,” Ronan accused lightly, already one foot outside the store.

Adam chuckled, feeling a little giddy with the feeling of the keys resting on his palm. “You caught me. Now get the fuck out.”

Ronan flipped him off and got the fuck out.

* * *

 

Adam only knew the bare bones of how to manage the Lyric out of necessity.

He worked a part-time retail job on the regular so he knew how to work a register, and most of the customers that came into the Lyric were tourists looking in and actual musicians buying supplies. The only job he was really doing was listing down whatever products he’d have sold that day and trying to getting through his latest book. Well, that and the cold weather made the front windows fog up that Adam had to walk up to the front and wipe off the moisture multiple times.

No one came by to buy anything at the Lyric that afternoon. He hadn’t expected there to be, really. A few people came in to have a look at some instruments, asked the price for a few, then walked back out. Customers usually slowed down to a trickle around the time holiday sales stop, and the Lyric didn’t even have holiday sales.  

 

He had a few pages left in his book when the door opened and admitted one of the Lyric’s actual employees.

Ronan was visibly tired; eyes lidded, he shrugged off his coat and draped it over the piano bench near the counter. The presence of wrinkles on his ratty shirt made him look worn-down and drained rather than his usual, purposefully crumpled look. The exhaustion weighing down his shoulders made him seem ill and somehow, Adam knew that it wasn’t the kind of exhaustion that could be pushed away with a brief stint with an instrument and laughter. It was as much the bone deep exhaustion Adam felt on school days after a graveyard shift.

They didn’t speak and it wasn’t awkward. Adam knew that Ronan was hiding how hard he was taking the fact of his parents being out of the country for the holidays. He knew that asking if Ronan was okay would only get him barbs and a rushed apology, and he didn’t want to cause Ronan any more turmoil at the moment.

He also knew that Ronan was fully aware of his parents coming back before New Year’s Eve and didn’t need Adam to tell him twice. Ronan was always visceral with all of his emotions, and Adam had no doubt that the other boy would miss his parents something fierce.

Ronan worked like an engine when he was like this. The problems were impossible to decipher unless you knew how he worked. Adam only knew enough to get by, but ultimately, the decision of fixing the problem was Ronan’s choice.

“No one came by today,” Adam informed him, closing his book around a receipt for a keyboard he found lying around the shelf near his locker-box. He put it next to the cash register so that he could pick it up the next day. He watched the way Ronan stared at the counter-top, the way he stood with his arms by his side, so still that anyone passing by would have thought he was an image or a statue.

Adam grew anxious with how heavy the silence was getting. He suggested, “We can close shop now. Drive around, if you like.”

They had done that before. Ronan was supposed to take him home on Thanksgiving, but instead he pulled up to a relatively empty highway and drove as fast as he could while Adam laughed and clutched at the hold by the roof. Ronan had kept throwing Adam looks from time to time to see if Adam would just bark at him to bring him home.

(He didn’t.)

Ronan stayed silent at the suggestion, but looked him in the eye as if to say that he was listening and that he’d’ heard and remembered. Adam didn’t avert his gaze, hoping that Ronan saw how concerned he was with one look.

Eventually, Ronan grabbed his jacket from the piano bench and went around the counter. He stepped up to Adam and grabbed the Lyric’s keys from where it was placed next to Adam’s book. He smelled of the city, smoke, mist, and himself mixed together with a whiff of mint that reminded Adam of Gansey.

Adam didn’t back away despite the enclosed space that was Ronan crowding him against the shelves, standing close enough that their chests brushed against each other. He leaned around Adam and flipping the light switches hidden beneath the counter.

Adam’s breath hitched as the darkness swallowed them, Ronan standing so close that he was sure that, if he could see, Ronan’s face would be inches from his. His hand darted out and caught at what he assumed was Ronan’s arm. He felt a breath on his cheek, a hand catching at the slippery material of his windbreaker.

The darkness stayed the same. He could barely feel his eyelids close as he blinked. The feeling of warm skin underneath his palm had him feeling as giddy as he felt earlier that morning.

Ronan didn’t pull it away from Adam’s grip but he did stand back and started to lead the way out of the Lyric.

He hadn’t noticed the world turning dark outside the Lyric’s front windows, and was surprised that his eyes still had to adjust to the darkness upon reaching the sidewalk.

“We can move your things into your new place,” Ronan said in that casual way that showed Adam just how nervous he really was about bringing up the idea. Adam, once he could see properly, saw the way Ronan shoved his hands into his jean pockets, not bothering to zip his jacket shut.

Adam tried not to think about how maybe his fidgeting was because he’d almost kissed Adam inside the Lyric. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair and focused on Ronan’s words.

They had talked about it once Adam had calmed down at the convenience store that Monday after hearing the news.

Ms. Ramirez had told Ronan that a Mr. Lee had moved out that afternoon. She gave Mr. Adam Parrish leave to move some of his things in, because apparently Lee had left a few pieces of furniture and would he like to see if he would want to keep it or sell it?

Ronan had made the smart choice and told Ms. Ramirez that they would show up there around one of Adam’s days off. There was still paperwork to sign and they would have to pick it up before anything permanent could happen.

(Adam had thanked Ronan profusely when he found out, just as he had when Aurora gave him the box of books. Ronan had threatened to poke him as many times as he said ‘thank you’ when he didn’t stop after Ronan told him to shut up the first time.)

Adam gave Ronan an odd look at the sudden suggestion. “Are you sure? We can do it tomorrow.” Ronan locked the door to the Lyric instead of answering, so Adam pushed on as he followed. “I know you’re tired from DC, Ro. We can just—”

“I’m fine.”

Adam gave him a look over the hood of the BMW. Ronan’s shoulders were tense and his eyes were pleading him to just _drop it_. Adam didn’t back down.

Ronan averted his gaze, shoulders dropping. He sighed through his nostrils. His breath came out as a cloud of mist and Adam was transfixed with how it held in front of them before disappearing completely. “I don’t want to think.”

Adam crossed his arms and set them on the roof, ignoring the stinging cold of it through his thin windbreaker. “And helping me move my stuff in would help with that how, exactly?”

Ronan’s only answer was a shaky “ _please_ ” almost lost to the breeze that blew across the strip. Adam heard it and the rawness of his desperation. It told him that Ronan didn’t want to think about how his parents were halfway across the world right now; that he didn’t want to miss his mother and father too much because he knew they would get home by the New Year, tired from their flight and from their travels, only vaguely aware of how much their middle child missed them dearly. It was childish and stupid.

Adam wondered if anyone would miss him as fiercely as Ronan did his parents in that moment.

He pulled the passenger side door open and slipped in without another word.

* * *

 

St. Agnes Parish Church looked as sacred as it was supposed to be when it was like this: with its pews occupied by various people praying, with the choir practicing hymns and responsorial passages for the evening Mass,  the candles lining up the wall and the fluorescent lights barely making a dent to the darkness between the ceiling and floor. It cast an atmosphere around the church that told everyone in it to keep quiet, though he supposed all churches had that kind of air to them.

Ronan dipped his fingers into the font by the entrance and did the sign of the cross. It was a gesture only familiar to Adam by mere exposure. He wondered if Ronan was devoted to this kind of thing.

To clear his thoughts, Adam led the way to the church office. The middle-aged women fumbling with their rosaries near the church office’s entrance gave the both of them dubious looks, and Adam was only half-sure that Ronan sent it right back.

The door to the office was ajar when they reached the hall. Ms. Ramirez’s office was just as Adam had remembered it, a little cozy room full of knick-knacks and file cabinets, the walls littered with more Christian memorabilia than Adam had ever seen in his life.

Adam knocked on the open door. “Good evening. Um, Ms. Ramirez?”

The woman looked at him over her spectacles, then beamed. “Mr. Adam Parrish, ah, yes. I was expecting you. Oh, I see you brought Mr. Lynch with you too. Hello there.” When Ronan nodded in response, she pushed away from her desk and stood.

She made a waving gesture at the both of them and turned to grab something from behind her large desk chair. Adam and Ronan made no move to enter the room. Ms. Ramirez shuffled out of the office in the few seconds that it took for Adam and Ronan to exchange looks, pushing past Ronan and down the hall. “Come, I’ll show you both to the room. Have you brought some of your things? That is good. See, Mr. Lee moved out of town…”

Adam tuned her chatter out, nodding whenever she looked over at him as she led them to the room. She opened a door that held a stairwell as narrow as a supply closet and shuffled up the stairs. Adam was at face level with her pink slippers and dark green toenails.

“Here you are, Mr. Parrish. One by one up the stairs please. I am very sorry for how narrow it is in here, you are, ah, taller than Mr. Lee so you might have to keep your heads low. Oh dear.”

Adam’s room was a glorified church attic. It was small and reeked of the same lumber dust-ancient smell of the church below it. The furniture that Lee had left was all the kinds of plastic and cheap that Adam would have bought anyway. The mattress seemed cleaner than he expected, and the only window in the room looked rusted shut. He could see the cracked tile of his bathroom peeking out from behind a door that he was sure wouldn’t shut if he tried.

It was a meager portion of what he could get if he searched elsewhere. It was temporary. It was going to be _his_ come Christmas morning.

He wondered when he would start hating it.

He turned back around to see Ronan looking in curiously. Adam forced himself to duck into the room and keep his smile to himself.

Ms. Ramirez made a dissatisfied noise behind him and said, “I really am sorry that this is all that we have to offer. I could make an arrangement and send you to one of the nearest shelters just a little ways out of town but…”

 _My situation is unique?_ Adam finished in his head. There was no point in snapping at sweet Ms. Ramirez so instead, he said, “It’s okay, Ms. Ramirez. This is fine.”

The drawers were clean when he opened them, and so was the bathroom when he pushed open the door. Adam had a feeling that Mr. Lee was a bit of a neat freak and he was grateful for it. A _thud_ brought him out of his thoughts. He turned to see Ronan’s arm dart back out of the room behind Ms. Ramirez and his duffel bag on the floor. He frowned.

“That could’ve had anything breakable in there, you know,” Adam scolded as he stooped down to grab it.

Ronan scoffed, “What, like your ego?”

“You mean _your_ ego, right?”

“Boys, I think we should discuss the paperwork now,” Ms. Ramirez cut in, reproach seeping into her suggestion. Adam sighed and muttered an apology under his breath and followed them out of the room and, with one final look at his new room, turned off the lights and shut the door behind him.

* * *

 

Adam had a dream that went like this:

He would stand, weighed down by his backpack, in the middle of his room in the double wide, and it would be empty. The cabinets and drawers would be shut but there was a detached feeling of satisfaction underneath the hazy surface that was the cesspool of his dream emotions that told him that he wouldn’t find anything inside.

He would open the window that would lead outside his room and jump down. The sky would be starry and vast; the air would be chilly enough that every time he exhaled, there would be a cloud of mist in front of him. The trailer park would be awake, but his house would be asleep. Neighbors would be up but they would not see him as he walked out of the neighborhood.

He would reach the end of Antietam Lane and stumble upon the main road, and he would see the outline of the BMW waiting in the darkness, almost invisible if it weren’t for the headlights.

This was a reoccurring dream of his, and this would be the part where it would turn into a nightmare, when he looked behind and caught a glimpse of the trailer park, he would turn back and see nothing on the other side of the main road. The BMW would not be there. His bag would not be weighing him down from behind. His things would be back in his room.

This was not a dream, and it held zero chances of turning into a nightmare.

Adam took a deep breath and held it, watching the mist form as he released it through his teeth. He stood there long enough to make sure that he felt all of the aches in his body, the dull feeling of his creaking joints as he swayed back and forth, the blooming headache behind his eyes. None of those aches were inflicted upon him, and after tonight, no ache would be inflicted upon him.  

He gathered his courage, crossed the road, went around to the passenger side and sat down next to Ronan. He put his bag down on the footwell and tried to relax. Ronan didn’t speak, but the music coming out of the speakers soothed him enough that he wouldn’t have to be conscious of how shallow his breaths were as they came out of his lungs.

He closed his eyes and felt the car lurch and move, heard the rumble of the wheels, the growl of the engine. His breathing evened out. He opened his eyes.

As they drove away from the trailer park, Adam did not look back.

* * *

 

The stars always shone brighter at the Barns.

He stepped out onto the porch to look at the sky.

He had never known to navigate the stars and constellations. He evenly divided the things he read about for research and out of curiosity. Recent fictional books have written characters who knew the names to each set of stars like the back of their hands. He wondered if he would grow to know them too.

Distantly, he heard Ashley’s voice coming from inside the house.

The Lynch brothers had kept themselves in Virginia since Wednesday, but this Christmas Eve was the only time Adam had the chance to see them. Declan had made sure to steer clear of the Lyric while Ashley was there with them in Virginia.  Matthew was content staying at home to spend his vacation hanging out with his eldest brother when he found out that most of their friends were off to their own homes for the holidays. Ronan had kept on making sure to get into the Lyric as bright and early as he could, only closing when Adam deemed it time to leave.

He wondered if it was because Ronan didn’t feel at home without his parents or if he really wanted to hang out with Adam as much as he could.

Speaking of.

They had eaten dinner in the living room, sitting on the carpet and blanketed couch cushions. Adam couldn’t help but stare at the size of the Christmas tree, softly lit up, casting them all in odd lights and colors. It was informal and homey, something only the Lynch brothers would think of. The center table had various finger foods, and a laptop was setup to project onto the TV screen. The tinsel around the fireplace glittered in Adam’s peripheral vision as he threw looks at Ronan from across the center table. They called Aurora and Niall on Declan’s phone, and collectively laughed at Aurora’s reprimands about how if she got home to the blankets smeared with chili and beer, she will make them clean each sheet manually.

It wasn’t what Adam expected a Christmas could feel like.

The middle Lynch brother had disappeared around the time they had cleaned up the food and started up Ashley’s movie queue. Adam vaguely remembered him grabbing a beer from the cooler that Declan had set up next to the living room table before walking off upstairs.

Adam sat through four movies, made sure that Ashley, Declan, and Matthew were sound asleep before reaching out to turn off the TV and all the lights save for the Christmas tree. With that, he fumbled his way out of the living room and down the hall to reach the porch.

He wondered if Ronan went to sleep early, then rolled his eyes at the absurdity of the idea. 

His mind wandered back to his bag, stuffed in the footwell of Ronan’s car and wondered when he would start saying the word _home_ without thinking of a dusty driveway. It was such a sad and self-pitying thought that Adam smiled to himself.

A creaking noise brought him out of his thoughts. He looked behind him. The door stayed shut. The hall stayed dark. He looked off to the side of the porch. Nothing, save for  the ladder leaning against the porch.

He looked back out of the field. Then, turned back to the ladder.

That wasn’t there when they got here, Adam remembered.

Another noise. From above. A sigh.

Adam rolled his eyes to himself and walked off the porch. He braced himself at the bottom steps of the ladder, then began to climb.

He braced himself against the ladder, staring down at Ronan Niall Lynch, wrapped in a baby blue blanket, seated on the porch roof like he belonged there. With one arm resting on his knee, Ronan leaned back against the wall beside a window that, Adam guessed, led to his room. He wore flannel pajama pants and a baggy UVA hoodie that probably belonged to either Niall or Declan.

Adam didn’t know what he expected, honestly, but it definitely was not _this_.

Ronan’s eyes were closed, his profile bathed in moonlight, his cheeks and the tips of his ears pink with the cold. Without opening his eyes, he told Adam, “Ground’s wet. Get on the roof before the ladder slips and kills you.”

Adam scrambled onto the roof.

Ronan opened his eyes to watch him, his eyes twinkling with amusement. Adam scowled at him, reaching out from his crouch to wipe his cold fingers at Ronan’s cheek. The skin beneath his fingers was as warm as it was pink. Ronan leaned away with a chuckle.

Adam tried to blame the shortness of his breaths with the near-death experience with the ladder but ultimately failed as he looked at how the corners of Ronan’s eyes crinkled as he laughed.

Adam settled into a sitting position that had his knee knocking against Ronan’s. The window pane dug onto his back, and he decided to focus more on that than at how Ronan’s arm moved from where his knee was propped up to lay his hand down inches from Adam’s. The warm proximity of his best friend was driving him to the edge.

Adam looked up at the stars and confessed, “I wouldn’t have known I’d get here.”

Ronan grinned at him, “On the roof?”

Adam scoffed and elbowed him. He wanted to distract himself from the tension in this moment by being unnecessarily thoughtful about his life and Ronan was ruining it. “I meant _here_ , asshole. Well, yes, on this roof—" Ronan laughed at this, "—but sitting _next to you_ on this roof.”

Ronan’s grin slipped away at Adam’s words. Adam tried to calm his heart, tried not to be too conscious of how close Ronan’s face was to his. Jesus, did Ronan have to sit so close? Did Adam have to sit down next to Ronan? His face was getting warmer by the minute, but he didn't think he minded it any.

Adam's voice was softer, nerves shot and buzzing when he continued, “Tomorrow morning, I’d be moving in to St. Agnes, then we’d go on with our lives like nothing big just happened. Same time last year, all of this was just a dream to me. A lot of that’s changed, and I still feel like this is just a dream. That I’ll wake up and not...”

He trailed off. It was a loaded sentence. He could wake up not having that stable job at the trailer factory. He could wake up not having enrolled to Aglionby yet. He could wake up and not know how to play the piano.

He could wake up and not know Ronan Lynch as anything but just another rich Aglionby boy who threw away his money into something as _stupid_ as music. It was a painful thought to consider.

Ronan finished, “And not sit next to me on my house’s roof?” It was said as a joke, but Adam knew otherwise.

Adam turned to look at Ronan, his eyes locked with the other boy’s.

“I wouldn’t be here without you, Ronan.”

Ronan leaned in slowly, the blanket dropping from his shoulders, stopping close enough for Adam to smell the mint in his breath, close enough that every exhale formed a cloud between their faces. Ronan’s eyes asked the one question neither of them wanted to voice in fear of breaking the moment.

 _Can I kiss you_?

Adam closed the distance just as slowly as Ronan had leaned in, taking note of how Ronan’s eyes closed as he did so.

Kissing Ronan Lynch on the porch roof in the Barns, blanketed by the soft light of the moon, was nothing short of dreamlike. Every kissing scene he’d read of had nothing against how he’d first felt the kiss on his lips, then throughout his entire body. He never realized how bad he’d been wanting this kiss.

Ronan pulled away briefly to turn in  his seat and find a better angle. The way Ronan hovered his hand over Adam’s cheek and stared at him as if he couldn’t believe this was happening told Adam just how long Ronan had been waiting for this.

Adam reached up and put his hand on Ronan’s shoulder, feeling the solid presence of it. He fit his palm around the nape of Ronan’s neck, relishing the full body shiver that went through Ronan’s body, and pulled the other boy closer. Ronan complied, pliant under Adam’s guiding hand. His hand was warm, and Adam felt fingers brush against his cheek and reach up to brush through his hair.

When Adam pulled away, Ronan’s eyes were still closed, his lips parted, his fingers still brushing through Adam’s hair. Seeing Ronan like this reminded Adam of the first time they’d stumbled through the clearing at the lake.

Adam whispered, “Ronan.”

Ronan opened his eyes, and it was akin to staring out at the morning sky. Ronan’s expression mirrored this sentiment, and Adam felt dizzy, overwhelmed by emotion. Or maybe that was the fact that he couldn’t breathe.

Ronan said, “Adam…” His voice was hoarse.

Two syllables put air back into Adam’s lungs. He leaned back in for another kiss. Ronan met him halfway.

The stars had nothing against the feeling of Ronan’s smile on his lips.

* * *

 

Adam woke up to the sound of the roosters crowing and his toes becoming numb with the cold. He shifted and felt the too-soft mattress, he turned around on the mattress and came face-to-face with navy blue blankets with rocket ships printed on it.

Three things became clear in his head in those waking moments:

First, as he sat up, was that he’d slept at the Barns and that he actually felt rested.

Second was that the window to the roof was still open, the air coming in was freezing his toes, and there was probably dirt on the seat of his pants.

Third, following the trail of the sunlight streaming in through the open window as it lit up the room and, more importantly, the bed, was that he’d kissed Ronan Lynch last night and that Ronan Lynch drooled when he slept and it was ridiculously endearing, so much that it made his heart clench in his chest.

It was _way_ too early for this.

He got out of bed, folded the blanket he borrowed—the very same blanket that had pooled around their waists last night—and padded out of Ronan’s room as silently as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be sad to admit that the last chapter will take up most of my free time, so the usual ten-day distance from each update might be disrupted. I'm hoping it'll come out just as I want it. School started, so I haven't been getting enough time to do much but edit. But! if you've seen my lynch lyric tag as of recent, you'll see just how lengthy the next chapter is! Eeeh?? Eeeeeeeh???
> 
> But anyway! Adam and Ronan finally kissed! Adam's finally out of the trailer park, into St. Agnes! Yay! Is there going to be angst? idk man, u tell me
> 
> [the rebloggable link is here for your gushy tag purposes](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/148682572545) and comments are always appreciated!!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don’t have to go back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe it's been a long time since i put this kind of warning up but!! 
> 
> content warning: there's some semi-explicit violence, there's a lot of depressing thoughts, and there's implied suicidal ideation

Though Adam knew that things could never change overnight, he was a bit apprehensive of the fact that nothing really did change from the moment Ronan woke up and groggily shuffled into the Barns’ kitchen the morning after they shared first kisses.

So maybe Ronan popped up more often at Boyd’s or at the convenient store, maybe Adam would ask Ronan more often if he wanted to go for a drive after a rarely uneventful evening in the Lyric.

Maybe, as time went on in those extra pockets of time, Adam would wonder more and more if he really had this, if he wasn’t just imagining things, if he missed some kind of social cue that would warrant that friends could kiss without having romantic feelings for each other. But then Ronan would make a joke and give Adam _that_ _look_ as they laughed, a look that said that Adam was the reason for everything good in his life, the answer to every question he ever asked himself in the middle of the night, and Adam would just forget that he cared about fitting into societal dating rules.

Everything kept on being despite those subtle differences, and that included a couple of not-so subtle things.

Sample A: Ronan’s lack of certainty in his actions when said actions were aimed at or benefited Adam.

Before Adam got to understand him, Ronan was always so purposeful. He always did something to get a response out of someone. His words were both measured and measuring, his eyes taking in the reaction his action made. It was odd, of course. Put that way, Ronan was observant, calculating. Adam admired that about him. Ronan’s perceptiveness was always subtle without effort. After all, no one expected Ronan Lynch to even give them the time of day, with his careless attitude and snarky remarks.

But after becoming better friends with Ronan, after letting him in on the biggest secret he had, small things changed to benefit Adam.

Ronan would send Adam looks whenever their group of friends talked about events or things that required parental consent. At times, he made adjustments on which days Adam could come over for a recording session when he wasn’t there to tell the others, knowing Adam’s schedule the best after prolonged exposure. Ronan often averted his gaze whenever Adam sent him a grateful or questioning look about it.

If Adam wouldn’t be able to take the help for granted, Ronan would have to give it for granted, if that made sense. It almost seemed to be a reflex to Ronan, and a surprising turn of events for Adam.

Now that they were a _thing_ …

Ronan shrugged on his jacket, copping around the pockets to check if he had everything. By the door, he looked at his brother, who sat at the counter, where the WiFi signal was strongest. “Usual pepperoni and cheese, Dee?”

Declan made a sound of assent, which seemed enough to appease Ronan. He flicked a look over at Adam and gave this look that Adam could only think of as _What about you?_ or _Is this okay?_ It hadn’t been an odd occurrence as of recent.

Adam nodded. Ronan rushed out the door then, braving the chilly winter weather alone.

He went back to playing the piano, thinking maybe he should ask Ronan why he’d be asking now when he hadn’t then. It felt like they’d just recently got used to that arrangement and now that they were a _thing_ , Ronan was changing it again.

The question was: when would he be able to ask about it?

“You guys think you’re being subtle,” Declan wondered aloud once, his voice carrying out over the music.

Adam froze from where he was lost in thought, hands hovering over piano keys. He mulled over the words that Declan had accused him of and didn’t say anything. The fact that Declan only spoke until Ronan was out of the room stood out, and instantly, Adam knew this was a planned discussion.

He turned the question around in his head. If he was going to be honest with himself, Adam didn’t really think he and Ronan _were_ being subtle about anything. They just didn’t care to act it out in front of other people.

Before they had this—whatever it was—he and Ronan would always gravitate towards each other. It didn’t matter where they were or who they were with. They would always exchange smiles and inside jokes in short glances, sit next to each other at class or in the cafeteria, going so far as showing up to each other’s workplaces just to find an excuse to spend time with each other. (Then again,  Adam had always been a little paranoid so he might not be a good judge about it.)

Adam gave Declan an inquisitive look, but Declan wasn’t really looking at him, continuing to scroll through something on his phone when he added, “Just remember that this is serious for him.”

As a non-response, Adam went back to playing, knowing that this was enough to tell Declan that he _knew_ , okay? If he answered, Declan would tell Adam that no, he didn’t really know as much as he assumed he did. Ronan wasn’t a mystery for him to unravel, he wasn’t a puzzle for Adam to solve, Declan would tell him. Ronan was a human being, and Adam would have to accept everything that he gave.

Adam knew that too. He didn’t need Declan reminding him.

When Ronan came back with a whole box of pizza from Nino’s, they ate quietly. Adam met all of the uncertain looks Ronan gave him as they ate and continued to give after the box of leftovers was stowed away in the fridge at the backroom.

Adam knew what Ronan was expecting. That Adam would offer that they take a ride out to the boonies and leave Declan at the Lyric or bring up whatever homework their teachers had given them over the break. Anything that gave Adam the leeway and excuse to pay Ronan back.

Adam met every uncertain look with a smile, and smiled even brighter when Ronan sat down on the piano bench and practiced songs with him. Eventually, Declan said his goodbyes, claiming that Ashley and Matthew were down at the town proper and needed a lift. Ronan shouted after him to _drive the below limit_ and Declan responded with a middle finger.

When the Volvo tore off the tarmac, Ronan rubbed a hand over Adam’s knee and leaned in so that they were pressed together from thigh to arm to cheek.

Adam let him and relished in the warmth of Ronan’s body heat so close.

This, accepting whatever Ronan gave him _within reasonable standards_ , was Sample B.

* * *

 

Nightmares focused on objects, feelings, and actions before panning out, similar to how memories were remembered. Nightmares always ran deeper than their literal descriptions. Adam had read that somewhere, but he couldn’t recall where anymore.

It didn’t really matter.

For some people, a nightmare would be flooring the brakes and still keep on going. It would be hurtling a thousand miles per hour, enjoying life, then wanting out but having no ability to stop. They would strap in and hope for a crash or a miracle or anything that will stop the progression. It was regret on an action that they’d already started.

For others, it would be reaching for something and falling short, with the goal just a few short inches away. It would be devoting yourself to something for hours and days and weeks and months and years, and still ending up a failure, still ending up fading into obscurity. It was the taste of unimportance lodged between their teeth.

Adam was a simple guy. He wasn’t scared of hurtling a thousand miles per hour in a regretful decision that he made because he was taught never to make decisions of his own unless it didn’t benefit him (or his wallet). He wasn’t scared of falling short of a goal because he knew how to pace himself. He wasn’t scared of a possibility that only held about twenty percent of rationality.

Being a simple guy, Adam’s nightmares were just as simple: panic clawing at his throat as he jumped off his bike, dread hitting his stomach as his sneakers kicked up dust with every step, the front door slamming open, shouting, struggling, fists jabbing at his side, the pebbles and rocks lodging into his elbows when he fell from one particularly nasty blow, looking up at the angry set of a mouth, the wry tone saying “ _Yeah, I reckoned you’d come running back to me”,_ telling him that his publicity stunt wasn’t impressive, that he was going to drop out of school as soon as Robert was done with him, that he would never see those _soft rich fuckers_ ever again.

On a lucky night, Adam would wake up ending the nightmare just at that spot.

Usually, it went way worse. The horror show would progress and he’d star as himself, scared and hurt and aching. Then, he would become his father’s fists, wanting to stop hurting Adam but knowing he would die if he stopped, holding survival in a vice grip as he began to bleed from exertion. Then, he would be Robert Parrish himself, taking pleasure from the sound of breath pushed out of abused lungs as his kicks and punches landed on bony flesh.

(They hadn’t gotten any further than that, though, not yet. Adam wasn’t holding on to hope for that.)

In his nightmares, the punches dealt didn’t ache all that much, the kicks didn’t blow his breath out from inside his lungs too painfully. In reality, he wouldn’t have felt any of it until after the beating anyway, so that wasn’t the worst part of this nightmare.

Instead, his body remembered the parts of it that he did dislike: the copper taste in his mouth, the sting as he pulled fabric away from a bleeding wound as he struggled midair, the suffocation of having nothing but short breaths in his lungs, his mother’s averted gaze from the doorway, and the one irrational fear that, somehow, he would do everything his father had shouted at him.

Five days after moving into St. Agnes, two days before Aurora and Niall got home from the UK, Adam had his third and most memorable nightmare.

He gasped awake, and didn’t sit up. Because if he sat up, his bed would creak and the sound of it would be loud through the thin walls of the double wide, and he would hear the sound of the recliner in the living room creak in response, and the door to his bedroom would slam open, and that would not end well. It didn’t end well when he was nine. It didn’t end well when he was twelve. It didn’t end well when he was fifteen.

His breathing began to get ragged as he remembered all of three times that he didn’t, the memories so vivid that he decided to stay still on the bed lest he risked feeling the ghost aches of punches already landed. He could feel his heart beat faster, the aching getting worse as it slammed again and again _and_ _again_ against his rib cage. He tried to stop thinking but he found the silence in his head worse. Instead, he thought of small tunes, the sound of pianos keys plinking through the song Matthew had written and taught him. He hummed and breathed with the beat he knew was there, effectively slowing down his breathing.

It took him  few seconds to calm down like that, keeping his breathing silent so that he could vocalize the notes better. His throat felt dry but he pushed through it despite the cracks in his voice. He opened his eyes to a sloped ceiling and the orange glow coming from beneath the covered window.

He was in St. Agnes, not in the trailer park, not in his room in the double wide, not under the same roof as his father. Matthew’s tune faded out of his brain as he repeated this mantra to himself.

 _I reckoned you’d come running back to me_.

Adam shuddered and shook on his single mattress on the floor of his new apartment, and didn’t dare close to his eyes again.

He’s never going back to that shithole.

He squinted at the clock that stood on the upturned box that served as his bedside table, saw that it read 2 PM, sat up carefully to mind the sloped ceiling, and started getting ready for his shift at the warehouse. Slowly, the nightmare lost momentum. Adam remembered accepting the ride back from the Lyric to the town proper so that he could catch some shut eye before going full-on from the warehouse to his shift at Boyd’s.

He closed his eyes before turning on the bathroom’s dingy light bulbs and started get ready for the night ahead of him.

 

Adam mentally tallied all of the things he would be needing to look for at the market on his next day off. He grabbed his pack from his locker, ignoring the chatter of the older men around him and all the clutter of scrap papers and empty rolls of deodorant, needing the steady distraction of writing down his plans. His walk to work hadn’t helped jack shit. Everything was still a static mess inside his brain, leaving him with just enough brain cells for menial tasks. He couldn’t stand it.

Sitting down on the bench in front of his locker, he hunched over and set the notebook on his knee. It was a cheap, outdated planner he picked up at a yard sale over a year ago. There were countless bullets on other pages, to-do lists and bills he had to pay, all crossed out. The thing was battered enough that some pages had fallen off. Adam didn’t care. He was well down the list of deciding where he should do his laundry when the locker room opened with a clatter and startled everyone into silence. Adam swiveled in his seat, thoughts brought out of his savings.

It was Ben.

He, Leon, and Mike have been acting odd from the moment Adam clocked in. It grated on his nerves more than he liked to admit but he didn’t say anything about it.

Was it because he and Ronan were a thing now and the men were thinking of asking him in a polite enough way that could somehow end up offending Adam anyway? Maybe it was because Adam had been skipping work more that year?

Adam wasn’t even sure he wanted to know.

The chatter in the locker room resumed. He turned back around and hovered his pen over the last word he’d written. What was he writing down again? When he tried to reread what he wrote, the letters swam, his handwriting back to being the illegible scratches it was to everyone around him.

He could feel a migraine forming just above his brow. Ben looked like he didn’t even want to have to do whatever he was just going to do.

Adam raised a brow at him, not trusting his voice with how constricted his throat was. Ben dropped his hand to his side and said, “Mr. Gordon says to meet him at the office.”

Adam sighed, steadily not thinking about the granola bar in the bottom of his bag that he decided to push aside in favor of getting his thoughts in order, or the fact that he was hungry. Instead, his scattered thoughts gathered enough to form into one singular concept.

What did his boss want, and why did it demand that Adam go into the office when Gordon almost always had talks out in the open? With another sigh, he stood, threw his planner inside his locker, and shouldered past Ben with a dismissive, “Alright. Thanks.”

This had better be quick.

 

Mr. Gordon’s office wasn’t nice-looking. It wasn’t like Ms. Ramirez’s little cubby hole in St. Agnes. Mr. Gordon’s office was bland and cluttered in that messy way that made Adam’s palms itch with the urge to pick something up. Mr. Gordon didn’t seem to mind that much. He continued to glower at the excel charts on his monitor when Adam opened the door after knocking.

“Um, good evening. You called for me, sir?” Adam chimed in. It sounded strained even to his ears, and he was sure Gordon had caught it.

Mr. Gordon didn’t even glance up, waving for him to come in. Adam tried not to be unnerved. Mr. Gordon had always been this quiet, he reassured himself. This wasn’t any new behavior.

“I’ll cut the bullshit here, kid,” Gordon grumbled. His voice was low and his dark eyes were tired. He put his palms down on the desk in front of him before finally tearing his eyes away from the monitor screen. Adam was caught like a deer in headlights underneath the concern in his usually-surly boss’s tired gaze.

Undeterred by his employee’s silence, Gordon added, “All I need’s a yes or a no, comprende?”

Adam nodded.

The concern didn’t lessen, but the tension in Gordon’s shoulders slackened just a bit. He sounded as if he was in pain when he asked, “Do you or do you not want me to tell your dad off the next time he comes by?”

There was a moment of silence that engulfed the room wherein Adam didn’t understand what his boss had just told him. There were too many implications going on with that one statement.

For one, Robert had come to the warehouse multiple times since Christmas, a feat so improbable that Adam almost had the urge to laugh. He didn’t even _think_ that his father would be bothered to look for him.

For another, it was enough to bother Gordon to the point of talking to Adam about it. What kind of stunt did his father pull? Had he shouted at everyone like he did with Adam or did he pull another stupid act out of his ass and convinced every single one of Adam’s co-workers that he wasn’t anything but a concerned father looking for his son, who hasn’t gone home since Christmas Eve? Had he talked to Mr. Gordon in private? Did he once stand in this room, talking to Gordon like this?

Most importantly, Gordon hadn’t ratted Adam out. It was stupid and mind-boggling. What was Gordon doing, involving himself in this mess?

Gordon looked at Adam like he knew all the questions going off in Adam’s head, and it held the sentiment of his statement before asking Adam his question. All he needed was a yes or a no.

Did Adam want Gordon to tell Robert off?

Adam took a deep breath. The way Gordon phrased it, Adam got no refunds once he decided. He couldn’t help but think of worst case scenarios on what could happen. If he said yes, Gordon would get roped into this, and if his father managed to drag him back, he would never hear the end of it. This was strictly a family matter.

If he said no, his father would manage to drag him back anyway, and he would get tied back, forced to drop out of Aglionby, locked inside his room for an indeterminable amount of time—it had happened once before, when he was nine and had told his English teacher why he missed class because she was nice and Adam liked her.

He felt on the verge of a panic attack, his lungs wanting to make his breaths go shallow. He pushed it down, squeezed his eyes shut and remembered the tune he hummed when he woke up that afternoon. Matthew’s little song. When that wasn’t enough, he conjured up the last thing that made him happy and thought of Ronan’s head resting on his shoulder as he sang the song that Adam was playing on the piano, the smell of lemon-scented wood polish from the Lyric’s counter.

He took a deep breath and sighed.

It was funny to Adam, how he began thinking of music and Ronan so that could stave off his anxieties like this. It felt like leaning on something solid and taking a break for once.

“Parrish?”

Adam opened his eyes. Gordon looked uncomfortable. Too many minutes had passed for this to be anything but.

Gordon asked, “It’s just a yes or no.”

Something was squeezing Adam’s throat shut, but he pushed through the discomfort and answered, “Yes, sir. If you don’t mind, I would be very grateful if you told him off, if or when he does.”

Silence.

It broke after a few moments when Gordon let out a heavy sigh and asked, “Any other comments, Parrish?” It sounded dismissive and exasperated, but Adam hadn’t been told to leave yet.

“...why decide to get involved in this, sir?” Adam muttered, looking at the floor. It was loud enough to be heard from where Gordon was sitting, to be sure. He hated repeating himself, especially when he felt this vulnerable.

“I know your dad. We were friends once,” Gordon started, his voice rough and emotional in the way that Adam had never thought he could be. “And I knew my own father. I hope you understand that what I just gave you wasn’t help. It was a choice. Robert caused shit when he came across Smith and Mulligan a few days ago, and I’m sure it’ll happen again if he comes back. I can’t just keep siccing security at him because, well, he has a good reason.

“He keeps claiming that you’re missing, and we all know that’s not true. Now all I have to do is to tell him that you’ve been fired for a week now and I haven’t been telling him because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or some bullshit like that.”

 _I knew my own father_.

Gordon knew perfectly well that this wasn’t going to help any, by experience. He knew that this wasn’t a choice that was just given to people like Adam, but he was doing it anyway. He and Adam might have had similar pasts but Adam knew that he was just doing this because he wanted to help Adam, and denying that it was help would make it easier for Adam to accept.

The way he said it was all-business. He _made_ that distinction of help and choice. The choice was Adam’s. Gordon was Adam’s boss and he didn’t want trouble inside the warehouse during work hours so Adam had to choose.

This was still business.

The thought seemed real but felt like a lie. It made him feel dirty, but there were no take backs now that he’d given Gordon his answer.

 

The break room was silent when Adam got back. His stomach was churning with hunger at this point, but he couldn’t really seem to care at this point. He looked directly at where Mike, Leon, and Ben were huddled at the corner. Mike didn’t seem bruised in any way, though according to Mr. Gordon, he had been the one who’d told Robert off. It didn’t get too violent then, and Adam couldn’t help the relief washed through him.

What Gordon gave Adam wasn’t help, but what Mike did for Adam was.

He crossed the room, stood in front of Mike and said, “Thank you.”

Mike shrugged, his smile strained. Adam didn’t flinch when Ben put a hand on his shoulder and shook him slightly.

“We’re here for you, buddy,” Ben told him.

Adam didn’t doubt him but was careful that he didn’t let his discomfort show as he nodded numbly at the words. Idly, he wondered when he’d come to believe them.

* * *

 

Boyd’s was probably the easiest shift Adam worked in all three of his jobs, only because he was experienced enough with engines that he didn’t need all his energy and brain power while working. He could review his lessons, ponder on whatever happens to certain characters from wherever he stopped on his most recent read, or even try to make up lyrics if he’s bored enough, all without having to stop while he changed the oil on an old Toyota Corolla, or checked the brakes of a dying Honda City, or have it out with the paint gun if he was given the chance. The ambiance in Boyd’s Body and Paint, LLC. was the clatter of tools, metal against metal, and the tinny sounds of the radio, and it was an atmosphere that Adam could get lost in.

Well, now there were the additional tinny sounds of a guitar.

Ronan was already there when Adam arrived at Boyd’s. This wasn’t unusual, not since Christmas.

It wasn’t unusual because it seemed a bit logical for them to just go from spending just enough time with each other to spending _all_ their time with each other. It got to the point that Chester from the convenient store started complaining about it.

Then it got to the point that Adam started thinking maybe they’ll grow out of it. Like maybe they’ll have a fight and set a distance between each other. Maybe Ronan will have something come up and will have to spend time away from Adam then get used to _that_. Maybe Adam will grow tired first, would find the non-existent space between them suffocating.

Honestly, he didn’t want to think about those hypotheticals.

Ronan had a notebook and his phone set in front of him on the bench near the office, the notebook full of songs that the other mechanics and Boyd wanted him to play while his phone had a browser opened for chords. That wasn’t unusual either, not since two days after Christmas.

The first times that Ronan had attempted to stick around the auto shop while Adam was working hadn’t turned out as planned. Boyd shooed off the other boy on sight, claiming that he was bothering employees with his presence, and he was distracting Adam from whatever he was working on.

And while Boyd set out certain rules for a show of professionalism, he still had his faults.

So surprise, surprise, he let Ronan Lynch stay over when he saw the other boy sitting on a bench off to the side, his weary gaze locked on the guitar in Ronan’s lap as he played along to whatever song was on the radio. Adam, from where he was bent over to check on an engine from two ports over,  strained to hear if the other boy was singing.

Tonight, Ronan wore a deep blue V-neck shirt and had his black tennis jacket wrapped around his waist, almost the same color of his skinny jeans. There was an exasperated smile on his face as Boyd practically butchered the lyrics to Hotel California, and his eyes lit up as soon as he saw Adam walk into the shop, and Adam, faltering in his gait, was instantly distracted.

(That wasn’t unusual, not since Adam met Ronan Lynch.)

Since Christmas, Adam needed a huge amount of concentration than usual while he worked at Boyd’s.

He could have easily pinned the lack of focus on the fact that he was stressed now that he was faced with the fact that he’ll have to push around his work schedule once school came back on full-swing, or the fact that he was slowly realizing how his initial budget was failing while he paid rent and partial tuition with two jobs that paid just a few dollars above the minimum wage and one that actually paid the minimum wage.

But no. It was mostly because of Ronan. Of fucking _course_.

Adam smiled as he slipped past Ronan to go get his overalls from his locker in the back, slipping into the baggy secondhand thing with practiced ease. He could already feel the ache between his shoulder blades and at the crick of his neck, a result of working in the warehouse and a premonition of the shift ahead of him.

On his way out to the front, he grabbed his card from the holder and clocked in, before asking any of his co-workers if there were any cars that needed his attention. Charlie pointed at the Ford Taurus and said, “Oil change. There’s also the Civic that has a leak, if you want extra.”

Adam nodded at her. “Thanks.”

He grabbed a jack and a toolbox and walked out front. The sound of Ronan’s guitar work and the lull of white noise coming from the radio set the mood. Boyd slipped out of his office and nodded at both boys before walking out of the shop to take a call and smoke.

As Adam crouched down to slide the jack underneath the Ford Taurus parked just a few feet Ronan’s bench, he risked a glance at where Ronan sat cross-legged on the bench by the office and smiled when he saw Ronan looking right at him. Soon after, as he collected the things he needed to work with, he felt his thoughts slip off to other things.

The previous evening, Adam had asked Ronan if Boyd was secretly paying a talent fee or something, and Ronan didn’t really bother with it. He said, “As long as I get to play where someone’s listening, I’m fine with it, you know?”

Adam _didn’t_ know. He was always so conscious of working on the clock, carefully counting hours in case one of his bosses thought to underpay him. It was a daunting reminder of the fact that Ronan grew up without worrying a lot about money.

He wasn’t too bitter about it, but it did kind of irk him a little. It was hard to take, hard to stop projecting all of his issues on Ronan’s seemingly issue-less life. All the potential and talent behind each and every single thing that Ronan did was wasted because Ronan loved to do what he did at his own pace, and money was never an issue with him.

Adam never had the luxury to do that—no, _be_ that. Sure, he’d done things for free before. He once repaired the Camaro for Gansey, and even did some heavy-lifting around Fox Way earlier in the year. There was the open mic event, which he did for fun and because Ronan had asked. But money was still, and would always will be, too important for Adam to set aside just like that.

Out of curiosity, once he finished gathering his tools and lied down on the board to slip under the car, Adam asked Ronan, “Hey, you’ve thought about making a career out of music, right?”

The question seemed to startle Ronan into answering somewhat politely. “Yeah, sure.”

“So you’re gonna go through college for that?”

Ronan snorted derisively at that. “Fuck no. That’s a one-way ticket to making me _hate_ music.”

Adam hummed, his hands working on the engine. He didn’t feel guilty when he heard just how sharp he said, “Don’t want that, now, do we?”

Ronan didn’t respond this time, working out the chords of the song he was practicing. Adam didn’t know if it was to avoid part of Adam’s wrath, so Adam called out, “Ronan.”

He heard a sigh, exasperated-sounding. He bit back the urge to apologize through sheer willpower. “What do you want me to say? That I want to go to college? I don’t, man. Just because you want to doesn’t mean that I do.”

“Then what are you doing after high school?” He grunted a little at a nut that wouldn’t budge. Slipping out from underneath, he sat up to look around for something to use for lubrication. When he took a chance to look, Ronan seemed deep in thought, his fingers stuck on a C-chord, his eyes set on the notebook by his legs.

“I’ve never really thought about it,” Ronan responded idly, which was better than _I don’t know_. Adam didn’t think he would have reacted kindly to that. “Whenever I thought about the future, it always came up blank. As a kid, I’d make shit up for those yearbook things. Whenever anyone asked where I saw myself in ten years, it wasn’t anything flattering, and it sure as fuck wasn’t a desk job.”

Adam nodded, setting his elbows on his knees. “You and desks don’t work. You could never even sit still in front of the cash register.”

Ronan rolled his eyes, a small smile on his lips. Adam couldn’t help the smile on his face either. It was a moment before Ronan sobered up again.

“For a while,” he muttered, his voice almost a whisper. Adam strained to listen over the metal-on-metal ambiance. “Whenever the future came up, the first thing that came to mind was that there wouldn’t be a future with me in it.”

There was something else behind those words. It was as if Ronan was saying he could only imagine a future where he was dead or insignificant. Adam couldn’t take that, the thought of it squeezing something tight inside his throat.

Adam’s future was almost always outside Henrietta: his name on a college diploma, in his new $100K a month job, owning his own spotless apartment only a walk away from where he worked, being in the news for something relevant to everyone.  They were naive little dreams of old. They held that wonder, that tone of surrealism that motivated Adam into wanting to make them true. These were dreams before the Lyric, he knew, because these daydreams started with that feeling of moving forward and never looking back.

Upon meeting his friends, he began little future fantasies for all of them.

For Blue, he would think about environmental rallies and books about equality and Gansey looking at her as if she was every beautiful scene in the countryside.

Gansey’s future, in Adam’s head, was never far apart from Blue’s. He could teach history or be an archeologist, be Blue’s trophy husband. Adam was pretty sure that it was a future Gansey would like but he was a little biased.

For Noah, Adam thought maybe he wouldn’t mind being star in the music industry, his manic grin— still the friendliest thing Adam had encountered in his life— plastered in billboards, his music blasting out through speakers whenever anyone turned on the radio.

Ronan’s future was such a mystery to Adam, compared to the others. The boy held too much promise and potential for one solid career. Adam could see him winning at all the sports he specialized in; could see him opening up international branches for the Lyric; he could see Ronan becoming a well-known musician, maybe starting a band with Matthew.

In these daydreams, there would come a day or a week or a month when they would all take a break and meet up. Harmless things that had them spread out around the world, so far apart and busy that all the times they were together were moments to cherish. He wove it into his old daydreams.

But now.

If he thought of his own future, he’d dream of an endless stretch of tarmac and horizon, the rolled down windows whipping his hair around, Ronan’s forearm tanning from where it hung outside the car, their fingers intertwined on the gear shift. He’d dream of summers with Ronan and his family in the Barns, of happier birthdays surrounded by friends, of the feeling of Ronan’s smile against his lips.

If anything, Adam couldn’t dream of a future without Ronan.

 _For a while, whenever the future came up, the first thing that came to mind was that there wouldn’t be a future with me in it_.

Adam blurted out, “What changed?”

Ronan blinked, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”

“You said ‘for a while’. What changed that?”

Then, the funniest, most endearing thing happened when he asked this.

Ronan blushed.

Heat rose, a fitting word for it, the color travelling from his neck to his cheeks to the tip of his ears, and there was this genuine smile on his face that made Adam want to stand up, press two fingers to Ronan’s jaw and kiss him senseless. It was such an irrational and visceral thought that Adam jolted when Boyd walked in front of Ronan on his way to the office.

“I don’t pay you by the hour to gossip, Parrish,” the old man grumbled when he noticed the tension between the two. If Boyd noticed Ronan’s flush, he didn’t comment on it.

Adam stuttered a “yessir” before going back under the car. When the coast was clear, he heard Ronan sigh. While Adam hid his grin from underneath the car, Ronan shielded his with his phone, and if anyone—even Robert—walked in at that moment, Adam would have been set so high on his horse that he wouldn’t have given a fuck.

 

The auto shop was deserted, the overhead lights casting shadows around the shop, and Ronan had already retreated into the BMW to turn on the heating and wait. Adam folded his overalls to store in his locker and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

He didn’t have to do this. Actually, he shouldn’t even be thinking of doing this. Boyd and Robert were once close friends, and Adam had gotten the final push to get this job because of that connection. If he did this, he’d lose his job.

But he didn’t want Boyd to involve himself in this mess like Gordon had. Adam had no doubt that Boyd would get involved one way or another, and that, more than anything, proved that Adam had no choice but to do this. He just hoped neither Boyd nor Ronan would hate him for it.

He rapped three times on the office door before he lost his courage, shoving it wide enough to admit him into the office.

Boyd sat in the middle of the room, the monoblock table littered with bills and receipts pinned down by various, rusty car parts, so as to not flit off because of the old ceiling fan’s weak wind.

“Sir, if you’re not too busy, may I speak with you before leaving?”

Boyd grumbled in his seat, his eyes not leaving the yellow paper set in front of him. “If it’s for a raise, then no,” he quipped.

Adam tittered, eyes focusing on the tire iron that was weighing down three receipts at once. “No, it’s not that. But it could wait if you’re doing something more important…”

Boyd sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “Just spit it out. My vision’s swimming as it is. I’ve been listing for hours.”

Adam nodded numbly. “Actually, uh, it’s about my dad.”

Boyd’s eyes lit up at that, which only made the stone in Adam’s stomach sink lower. He struggled to add, “I’m… Well, if he ever comes by looking for me… I don’t want you to get involved—It’s really complicated and…”

Adam sighed, eyes flitting upwards to watch the ceiling fan’s slow cycle. When it felt like he wouldn’t stumble over his words anymore, he continued. “You can fire me if you want, sir. That’s what I’m saying.” He dropped his gaze to Boyd’s confused face and _did not_ flinch. “You can fire me, but just don’t tell him that I’m still somewhere he can find me.”

“Is this a joke?” Boyd asked solemnly. Adam didn’t think about how angry he sounded. “‘Cause it sure as hell ain’t funny, kid. If you’re done pissing around, get out of my office before I _really_ fire you.”

Adam shook his head, ultimately resigned to the fact that he might get fired for being stupid enough to believe that Boyd would agree with him on this. It was his own fault for thinking otherwise. “I’m a hundred percent serious, sir—”

“Oh, you’re Jodie’s son, alright, you self-sacrificing little shit.” Boyd ran a hand over his face, mumbling and grumbling. He pointed at Adam, and Adam tried not to step back because it wasn’t anywhere near him. “If Robert’s gotten you into some stupid shit, I’m not firing you. It’s his own damn fault.”

Adam blinked, a bit taken aback that Boyd thought that that was what Adam meant, and also because Boyd was so stubborn about keeping Adam.

“That’s not it, sir. It’s—if he finds me, he’ll drag me back home and I just— ugh.” Adam huffed out a breath, running a hand through his hair, oil be damned. “I don’t want to get you involved with my family issues, sir. If he visits and looks for me and catches you lying about where I am, it’ll give you nothing but trouble.”

Boyd scoffed. “What’d you do, run away?”

This time, Adam _did_ flinch. “More or less.”

Boyd regarded him for a few long moments before picking his pen up and going back to his yellow paper and bills. “I’m not firing you. Get out of my office.”

Adam stepped forward, “But—”

“ _Out_ , Parrish. If I don’t see your lily-white ass dressed in overalls on Monday, I’m going to drag you back here myself.”

Adam froze for a second, then sighed, resigned and relieved that he was keeping his job. Why were his bosses like this? Shit wouldn’t turn out like this if he tried it at the convenience store. Turning to the door, Adam paused when he thought he heard footsteps, but when he looked over his shoulder, Boyd was still seated, focused on his bills.

Grabbing the knob, Adam said, “Good night, sir. And… thank you.”

Boyd glanced up for a moment, then waved him off.

Adam walked out and pulled the door shut behind him.

 

When Adam got there, Ronan was outside the BMW where it was parked just a few feet from the entrance to Boyd’s, sitting on the trunk so that he was underneath the glow of the dingy incandescent bulb that Boyd had yet to replace. Adam put a hand on Ronan’s knee and leaned into his space.

On impulse, or just because he wanted to, Ronan leaned down and gave him a quick peck on the lips. This was still new to the both of them, still a stilted thing that would take repetition to keep going, but it never failed to make Adam’s knees weak. He leaned against the trunk between Ronan’s knees, his body sagging in affection, exhaustion and relief. He’d kept both his better-paying jobs today, both jobs the only ones he knew Robert and Jodie knew about and, in the end, Ronan was still here with him.

“You hungry?” Adam asked Ronan, after a moment to himself. He wasn’t ignorant of the fact that Ronan hadn’t done much of anything the whole evening. “We can go for a drive-thru.”

“Real classy, Parrish,” Ronan quipped, placing a hand on Adam’s shoulder and dropping down to stand. They were chest-to-chest for all but a moment but Adam knew that he wasn’t the only one breathless. As he walked towards the driver side Ronan called over his shoulder, “I’m paying.”

Adam nodded and made his way to the passenger side.

* * *

 

There was something wrong the moment they entered Adam’s apartment.

Maybe it was because Ronan was oddly tense after they got their burgers to-go. Maybe it was that Adam was tired. Or maybe it was because this was only the second time Ronan had gone into his apartment since he checked it out with Adam before Christmas.

Either way, there was a tense silence in the room that put Adam on nerve, and since his whole evening was just one step around the edge of a crumbling cliff after another, Adam asked, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Huh?” Ronan twisted around, back hunched so that he wouldn’t hit his head. The shadows of the room’s sloped ceiling receded, losing its depth just as soon Ronan occupied the space.

Adam smiled at the sight of Ronan just standing there, shutting the door behind him and ducking into Ronan’s space. “You’re all tense, Ro,” he teased. “Is something the matter?”

For a second, Ronan’s face blanked. Then, as if remembering who he was with, the taller boy looked pained and confused, refusing to meet Adam’s gaze, choosing to look at the blinking red light of the alarm clock right below his knee.

Adam shouldn’t have asked, but if it set Ronan on edge like this just by being broached so casually, with all of the things Ronan had given him for the past few months, the least Adam could do was listen, if he couldn’t help.  Adam reached out to touch Ronan by the elbow, seeking contact.

It had been their thing before _this_ , reassuring or comforting with just one touch. He stopped his hand just by Ronan’s elbow, waiting for a nod or an answer.

But Ronan wasn’t focused on that. He was still focused on the alarm clock by his knee, and because Ronan could never lie to Adam about anything, he answered with, “I… overheard you talking with your boss earlier.”

It took a second to process.

The footsteps he heard by Boyd’s door wasn’t just imagination, and the fact that Ronan was waiting in the cold outside the BMW wasn’t just because Ronan enjoyed the cold more than he did the warmth.

The hand that had been by Ronan’s elbow dropped back at Adam’s side, and it took a second for him to process that too.

Ronan met his eyes after a moment, uncertain and just a tinge bit of fearful that looked so wrong on his face, aimed at Adam like this. He opened his mouth, made shapes as if trying to form the words he wanted to say. When Ronan found his voice again, he stuttered, “I didn’t mean to… I was going to…” Ronan held back a breath that Adam knew would have been a sigh. With a strained smile that made Adam feel uneasy, Ronan reassured, “Never mind. You can make your own choices. That was actually really brave of you to do.”

But that wasn’t what Ronan wanted to say.

Adam didn’t know if he was self-destructive, or mad at Ronan for hiding his opinions about Adam’s actions, or if he really did just want some space between him and Ronan for once, but he decided that it was smart to take a step off a ledge, took a deep breath, and said, “No. No, tell me what you think. You just overheard a conversation that I had with my boss about me wanting to risk getting fired just so my boss wouldn’t get involved in whatever idiotic stunt my dad was going to pull after he showed up at one of my jobs looking for me.”

Ronan didn’t flinch at Adam’s words. He was too statuesque and solid for that, and it was why hiding his opinion from Adam was completely uncharacteristic and enraging in the first place. Ronan _did_ step back though, which was enough indication for Adam to give him space. Ronan stared him right in the eye, now determined and just a bit embarrassed.

Adam could hear the rumbling of his ears, feel the warmth flooding his face, but he refused to lash out with Ronan so vulnerable. It was hilariously hypocritical of him.

“You don’t have to go back,” Ronan affirmed, his jaw set. “Not because of him.”

Adam let out an empty laugh. He didn’t know if it was because the statement was so incredibly generic and unbelievable to him or if it was because he thought that it was absurd that Ronan even had to tell him.  “I’m not going back. I’m _never_ going back.”

Ronan looked bemused at this, which was a step closer to what most people would think was a smug expression. Adam was not most people. It was a self-destructive look, Adam identified from experience. The next set of words out of Ronan’s mouth proved him right when the other boy replied, “You say that, but you’re willing to get yourself fired because of him.”

Anger had always been explosive in the Parrish family.

“Then _what_ , Ronan? What do you want me to do?” His voice refused to rise so it sunk into a hiss as his anger got the best of him. He threw out a hand as if to present something of ridicule, but he was just pointing at air. “I moved _here_ because of him. I _got out of there_ because of him! It’s not that fucking simple that I can just throw some shit into a bag, haul it over the window, and disappear into the fucking night. He’s been _looking_ for me.

“I don’t have a single clue why he would, but he was, and it’s only a matter of time before his idiocy gets the people he didn’t want involved so deep into this that I wouldn’t be able to back out! What if he calls the police? What if he costs me all three of my jobs, drags me back, beats me senseless like he always does, and locks me up? I can’t tell the police that I’m—” he hissed the next words so venomously that it almost sounded like he thought they were taboo “—that he _abused_ me! That will not only ruin my chances for anything better once they put it on record, but it’ll get me into something _worse_. Look, I’ve fucking thought about it. A lot more than you think! You think I’m just _risking my job_ because I want to? No! I’m fighting tooth and nail to prevent him from holding me back again!”

Adam was breathing heavily by the end of his rant. It was almost a struggle not to continue talking until he’d crumble to pieces small enough that Ronan wouldn’t be able to put him back together again.

The silence that followed was infuriating, because Adam’s gaze was solely on Ronan’s and he was the only one crashing and burning when Ronan had started this mess anyway.

Ronan was always _so calm_ when he was in an argument. Adam used to think it was because Ronan was a storm, because to Adam, storms were a calm thing; they were a natural process of built up frustration, completely unlike the earthquake spontaneity of the Parrish brand of anger. In an argument between two storms, the clash of wind and rain going opposite directions would always result in a stalemate so big that the argument would just cease to exist, and all that would be left in the aftermath are the pieces to pick up and build with. This theory explained why fights between Ronan and Declan resulted in a much bigger, but  shorter feud, because they were both cut from the same cloth, both storms going the same direction then veering so off-course that they would reach a dry patch and never return.

Ronan was no storm, and nor Adam an earthquake.

They were just human.

Ronan continued to stare at him in silence, his eyes the only thing stormy about him. For a millisecond, Adam thought Ronan would walk out of their first argument as a couple, if they could call themselves that. The next millisecond, he thought, _I wouldn’t mind if that happened_. And when those milliseconds rounded up into one whole second, Adam regretted the whole thought process and ultimately derailed it.

The silence broke only when Ronan opened his mouth and said, “You don’t have to go back, Adam.”

Adam huffed out, this sound less smug and more defeated. The rumbling in his ears ceased, but it felt as if, to Adam, it had never started in the first place. “I’m not going back,” he repeated, but that sounded defeated too. The fight had seeped out of him in the face of Ronan’s stormy silence.

Ronan’s gaze took on a bit of challenging glint to it, and immediately, Adam felt himself receding back into anger. “Prove it, then. Tell me you don’t have to.”

It was downright childish, but Adam could see what Ronan was doing. Adam could say all he wanted about how he wasn’t going back, but if he couldn’t admit that he didn’t _have to_ , he would always have his doubts. That Adam could see what the other boy was doing didn’t mean he appreciated it so he scoffed instead of answering.

Ronan made a sound of mocking disapproval. “That’s not it. You have to say it loud and clear. ‘I don’t have to go back’. Say it, Adam.”

Adam sneered, “ _I don’t have to_. There, I said it. Happy?”

Ronan shook his head, crossing his arms, making this embarrassingly childish experience even more immature that it was almost enough to snap Adam out of his anger. “ _All_ of it, Adam.”

Adam counted his breaths, convincing himself that he wasn’t anxious, he was angry. He could _think_ the words Ronan wanted him to say, but to say it is to believe it. Adam didn’t think he could.

The way Ronan challenged and agitated him with just one look told him just how desperately he wanted the opposite.

 _I don’t have to go back_.

For the longest time, Robert Parrish was Adam’s warden, and the dusty lot of the trailer park was his cell. On his father’s slurred word or, more commonly, on his father’s raised hand, fist, or grip around a bottle, Adam would be confined inside his room for a staggering amount of days. And in that long time of fifteen years, Adam didn’t have a say on what he could, should, or had to do, because Adam never had anything more than the money in the cereal box under his bed, his job at the convenience store, and his partial scholarship at Aglionby.

Ronan’s challenging look shuttered into something soft after a moment, the expression not quite pity, but something that made Adam’s skin crawl something worse. In the many instances that Adam knew he wasn’t used to something, patience aimed at himself was one of them.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Adam spat, but it didn’t hold the vehemence it probably needed to make this mess even messier. Ronan didn’t reply with _like what?_ like Adam wanted him to, just to disperse their tension in that stupid way of his that always resulted in Adam kissing a smile off his lips.

Nothing was going Adam’s way right now. He lowered his head in an effort to avert his gaze from Ronan so that the other boy wouldn’t have to.

Ronan sighed and held a hand out between them, palm up so that it blocked the floor from Adam’s field of vision. He said, “You don’t have to say it now. I know it’s hard, but until you can say it, I’ll probably be in charge of saying it for you.”

Adam looked at Ronan through his lashes.

“He doesn’t fucking own you, and you don’t owe him shit,” Ronan surmised, the man of few words that he was. “You can do whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want, and one day, you’re gonna make it _way out there_ that everyone in this shithole of a town will scramble at the media claiming to know you before you made it. And I’m going to be there to tell them that you got there by yourself because you worked for it.”

 _I’m going to be there to tell them_. The words seemed to set the tone to him, that this wasn’t just Ronan pushing to comfort him, but pushing to confirm his own issues. Adam knew the power of words, that saying your problems out loud could make it into something real. Earlier, Ronan had said that for a while, he couldn’t imagine himself in any kind of future but now he was putting himself out there to insert his place in Adam’s.

Adam didn’t notice that he was smiling up until Ronan’s hand finally reached up to touch him by the cheek. Adam had forgotten how easy it was to get lost in the feeling that Ronan’s eyes betrayed in spite of his blank face, but, as of recent, he hadn’t forgotten how much Ronan’s touch grounded him.

Ronan leaned his forehead against Adam’s and said, “You do so much, Adam, the least you could do is start with yourself.” The feeling of his chapped lips against Adam’s was fleeting and soft, a tentative step onto previously thin ice. Adam hadn’t noticed his eyes closing but he had to open them again after a moment.

“What about you? I haven’t really been the best for you yet,” Adam whispered, his lips bumping against Ronan’s.

Ronan leaned down further to nuzzle at Adam’s neck like he usually did when he was overly affectionate. Adam didn’t mind. Actually, he kind of liked it. And after the whole evening, he felt like he needed it so he just let it happen.

“You don’t know that, Adam. You’ve been so much to me for so long, you don’t even realize it. But we’ll have to manage ourselves before we can manage each other, alright?” Ronan asked, pressing a kiss to the side of Adam’s neck. Adam shivered when he felt Ronan’s breath blow over his collarbone. “We’ll tell each other stuff we know we can handle. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, we both know how this’ll work.”

Adam hummed in response, the buzz of Ronan’s hair tickling his cheek. “I dunno, I’m just letting you. You stayin’ over tonight? We can share the bed.”

Ronan laughed quietly and finally moved to wrap his arms around Adam. “Burgers to-go and bed-sharing. Way to move to third base, Parrish.”

Adam swatted at Ronan’s head, “Asshole.”

Jokingly, Ronan quipped, “You know you love me.”

Genuinely, Adam agreed, pulling Ronan in for a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said ten days but waited until twenty days before updating? i'm so so so sorry, guys. school hasn't been letting me write any, and i've only caught up on writing recently because it's a holiday after the weekend. i hope this makes up for it!
> 
> comments are appreciated, and i see those kudos on any given day now, since i have kudos up in my emails!! i love y'all! <3  
> [tag some stuff and spread the word in this post!](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/149631858715)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know how we said we’d deal with our own shit before we dealt with each other’s?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: implied cutting problems, implied suicidal ideation (if you squint), mentioned past violence.

_He’ll leave you_ , Ronan heard. He didn’t know where it was coming, but he knew that it was from inside the house.

It was not coming from his parents’ room. Inside that room was an empty bed, untouched for the past few days. Inside that room was a nightstand that held the only gun inside the house, untouched for the past few years.

It was not coming from inside Declan’s room. Nothing and no one had been inside Declan’s room since Declan had graduated college. He and Ashley never stayed at the Barns past lunch whenever they did, so now it was empty.

It was not coming from inside Matthew’s room because nothing unpleasant had ever come from inside Matthew’s room save for his laundry.

Inside Ronan’s room, there were five musical instruments he kept inside closets and under his bed, three that were out in the open, and one raven eying him from its perch upon the bedpost.

With one look into a single red eye, a feeling overcame Ronan, and he knew that the raven was a girl. When she opened her beak to speak, it made a croaking noise so loud, Ronan was sure that he winced. She did a smaller rendition of a running motor, the sound of it unquestionable but improbable as it came out of her beak. A chainsaw.

Then the raven was gone, along with one of his blankets, in the way that flames flicker when disturbed. Replacing the blanket was a familiar black guitar. Replacing the raven was a little girl wearing a skull white cap over her cropped blond hair, who knelt by his bed, her head resting on her arms as she ran a finger over the brass strings.

The buzzing hiss of her fingertips against the dips of the coil didn’t come as Ronan expected once she ran through the motions, not upon the raven’s disappearance. Instead, Ronan could still hear the sound of a running motor she scratched at the strings.

“He’ll leave you,” the girl whispered over the noise and somehow, Ronan could hear it as if she were whispering right into his ear. Her accent was an odd foreign accent he couldn’t quite place.

“But that’s what you think,” she added. Her eyes, he saw as her gaze landed on his, were solid black. “It’s just you.”

Ronan thought, _Won’t he leave me?_ but he couldn’t understand what they were talking about. She was looking at something over his shoulder.

He turned to look at it too.

 

Ronan jolted awake when he felt a hand by his shoulder. His head whipped and was hit by the smell of air freshener. For one whole second, he couldn’t understand anything; he didn’t know where he was, how he got there, and how long he’d been asleep. He couldn’t remember why he was where he was.

Memories came trickling back into his head. He was in the backseat of the BMW, he fell asleep on the drive home, tired from an afternoon of heavy traffic after they spent more than thirty minutes reuniting (read: hugging and subtle crying while Aurora and Niall ranted on and on about some stupid old white dude three seats ahead of them on the plane). The last look he had of a clock was around eleven-forty, but he had no idea what time it was now. When he glanced at the dashboard, he realized that the engine was off, and everything was silent.

He came face to face with Adam’s worried blue eyes, immediately settling the hammering of his heart. He tried to recall what he was dreaming about, or if he had been. His stomach grumbled, reminding him of the one sandwich he’d managed to stomach for breakfast, much to Adam’s disapproval.

“We’re home,” Adam told him.

Ronan waited, choosing not to respond. He searched Adam’s face for blooming realization or shock, looking over every dip and rise, catching on every freckle he could see in the dim light inside the BMW. Adam merely blinked back, unaware of what Ronan was evaluating him for. Nonetheless, the implication of Adam’s words almost made Ronan smile.

 _Home_.

To a boy with Adam’s background, it wasn’t a word that should be taken for granted. Ronan certainly didn’t.

Adam exited the vehicle to let him out. Scooting over to the door, Ronan sat there, letting the cold air of the Barns wash over him. “How long was I out?” he asked.

Adam shrugged, leaning against the side of the trunk. With a lazy grin on his face, he said, “Probably for an hour straight? I thought you needed it, considering how little you slept last night. Hey, did you know you drool when you sleep?”

Ronan grabbed the door and pulled himself up and out of the vehicle. Adam dodged when he saw Ronan’s pointer finger inching closer to his torso, his laughter making Ronan feel so warm that he felt as if he were burning.

“Ronan, get your ass in here and help!” Declan yelled from the porch.

With one last look at Adam, Ronan shook his head and went to help.

* * *

 

To Ronan, music was less catharsis, more punching bag.

There were hours in a day, every day, when what Ronan wanted more than anything was to bruise and be bruised.

Niall Lynch had taught his boys how to defend themselves with their fists at a very young age. For whatever reason, Ronan didn’t know, but Declan had told him time and time again that it was _his_ fault that they had to do it. Ronan didn’t protest, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Fights became an easy thing to come by. The feeling of bone and skin under the swift swings of his knuckles was one of the most satisfying things to him. Kids at the local middle school always had it coming too, so he didn’t really regret any of the fights he did eventually start. He did, however, regret that the teachers always told on him, which directly caused Aurora’s disappointment and concern.

Aurora was reason enough to stop his fights by the age of ten, right when his growth spurt began shooting him up a notch or two every four months. He towered over most kids his age, and it certainly didn’t help his rep with the principal’s office. Therefore, less fights equals less of his mother’s disappointment. It was a child’s logic, but it was logic nonetheless, so he stopped listening to the insults thrown his way, started rubbing his knuckles on thighs, pushed holes into his notebook doodles, and waited until he could go home to his father’s punching bag in one of the barns.

Fights haven’t been picked with kids _not his size_ since middle school, and he mostly ended up just punching Declan for most of the fights that came after.

The following year, Declan gave Ronan his old green guitar as a birthday gift, third from the first dozen batches of instruments Niall began creating in one of their barns. It held Ronan’s attention long enough, which was what he told Niall when asked why he liked the guitar so much. Even at eleven, he wouldn’t admit that he loved something, no matter how obvious his interest on it was.

Evidently, Ronan loved the gift. He regularly practiced songs and personalized it so much that it turned black from all the doodles he drew on it. He called it Chainsaw, which was what Aurora told him his imaginary friend had been called. (Ronan didn’t really know if he even had one, but his child self might have had taste because it was a fucking hardcore name for an imaginary friend.)

Declan was convinced that Ronan would grow out of it, like he did with the bagpipes. Ronan was inclined to prove him wrong.

Bruises became less appealing while the sting of calluses and the sound of chords plucked right grew more and more pleasant to Ronan. Every violent urge was poured into holding a chord until his fingers had ruts that wouldn’t go away for longer than a minute. Every time he had the urge to shout at something, he grabbed his guitar, locked the door, and looked for songs he could practice instead.

It worked. His grades dropped below average with how often he grabbed his guitar and lost himself to countless songs instead of studying, but it fucking worked and that was all that mattered.

At the moment, standing in the middle of his parents’ bedroom with a heavy suitcase in his hand, Ronan could feel his fingertips itching to bite into the brass strings something fierce.

“Your father _really_ needs to stop using his shirts to wipe every damp surface,” Aurora muttered under her breath as she dug through all the laundry she and Niall had accumulated throughout their week in Europe. “Do you think he’d care if I made him do his own laundry? No! But would I try anyway? Probably!”

Ronan shrugged and set down the bag that Declan handed to him downstairs. Aurora frequently talked to herself about these things, and Ronan knew better not to answer her when she did so. Before letting go of the bag’s handle, he pressed his fingertips to it to relieve some of the itch.

He might have to just inflict the most horrible word vomit upon his own mother while she was still out of it, close his eyes, and then hope for the best.

But what if Aurora didn’t approve? What if Aurora _did_ approve but Niall didn’t?

They _love_ Adam, he reminded himself, and they didn’t seem to mind that he was obvious about his interest on Adam in its early stages. Hell, they even encouraged and teased him about it. What did he have to be so worried about? Were there ever times that his parents were explicitly homophobic, or was Ronan just making scenarios because he was panicking?

 _Fuck it_ , he thought. This was going to be between his own pig-headedness and his parents’, if it ever came to it. Wringing his thumbs into his belt loops, Ronan said, “Adam and I started dating this Christmas.”

Aurora froze.

Ronan remembered the fateful day that Adam chewed him out for not reacting properly to the fact that he had shitty parents, remembered the words “ _That it?_ ” spat at him in a fit of rage, and now, Ronan _finally_ understood. It felt like, for the week that followed Christmas, the privacy of his and Adam’s relationship began building up. The moments they’d gotten to themselves were monumental and intense, isolated inside the space between the two of them. It felt improbable that spoken word of it would shatter the world’s natural balance.

Aurora unfroze. The news was out one second, and the smile on her face was there the next.  She swept him into a hug, her laughter shaking him to the core, pulling an unintentional smile into the corners of his lips.

“Oh, congratu _lations,_ Ronan! I’ve been waiting so long for this, I knew it!” She pulled away, then grabbed his cheeks to pull him in for a peck on his forehead.

Ronan gently pushed away, his breathy laughter shaking his shoulders. He tried to muster up a tone of exasperation as he mock-protested at her affection. “Mom, c’mon. Please.”

Aurora continued gushing. She looked so happy that Ronan forgot that she and Niall have been gone for a week on a trip on their own, or that she had just disappointed part of him that had been waiting for negative backlash; she glowed with pride and half-convinced him that she’ll burst into light if she didn’t stop smiling. “Oh, wait ‘til your father hears about this.”

Ronan’s smile was gone just as suddenly as Aurora’s had appeared earlier. Shaking his head, he said, “I’ll deal with it, just, let me tell him, okay?”

Aurora harrumphed, throwing a hand out between them in playful exasperation. “Fine,” she said. “Now go on, I have to deal with this mess.”

Ronan took one last look at the scattered pieces of clothing on the bed, and went on.

* * *

 

There were a lot of things Ronan couldn’t control in his life. The most prominent being: the truth.

Once he reached the age of ten, his prime age of many a self-discovery, he found that he couldn’t control whenever people lied to him or to others. It was by mere chance and pure luck that it took him ‘til fourth grade to experience betrayal, a memory he was relieved to have experienced just once and just with one other person.

It didn’t matter if he’d caught his friend lying to him about not cutting anymore, or if Matthew told him that he didn’t actually eat the last slice of pie in the fridge a week ago. The truth was never wrought out that easily out of a person, Ronan had learned, so he vowed to himself: he was never going to lie.

So when he stumbled into his room and found Adam standing by his desk and said, “Hey there, Snoopy,” he was relieved that Adam didn’t get mad at him. They’ve been a thing for only five days so Ronan was still waiting for that snap when Adam would figure out that he could do better than a blunt dickhead who had anger issues and stinging fingertips.

The hiss of skin against the parchment on Ronan’s desk overtook the silence in the room but he couldn’t hear it. Ronan could only hear the drum roll of his heartbeat in his ears as he watched the movement of Adam’s eyes as he perused the papers.

“I thought you were joking about that tattoo,” Adam chuckled, briefly glancing at Ronan as if to observe, then back to the papers. He did that a lot, observing. It was an Adam thing. “It’s really beautiful. What does it mean?”

Ronan stood by the doorway in silence, regarding Adam. With Aurora chiding that he should get it inked when she wasn’t looking, Niall telling him to do what he wants but to be responsible, Declan disapproving in general, and Matthew cheering him as boys like Matthew would do, Adam would be the first to ever ask what the design meant. That fact, more than anything, made him breathless.

Ronan knew the design by heart, stared at it every morning ever since he inked the last stroke on the design around a week ago, but he crossed his room to stand beside Adam and peer over his work anyway.

A thick circle stood in the middle of the page, the left side overtaken by hawthorn branches thick and plenty, overlapping the right side of alder branches. The branches were black and ran out the outline of the circle. On the highest alder branch perched a single swallow. On the lowest hawthorn branch brooded a single raven, its head turned curiously to observe the animal that stood beside it.

A buck peered between the branches of the hawthorn tree, pointedly ignoring the raven; its antlers and pelt a stark white against black; its head slanted so that it could peer up at the swallow on the alder.  On Ronan’s skin, the buck would appear invisible.

This was the back piece he’d been wanting since he turned fourteen. He’d done his research, wanted to own the culture he only knew parts of from his father. He knew what it meant.

Secrets settled on the left shoulder blade; his barbs and pointy edges covering his heart from behind. Love on his right, settled on home and passion. The buck, the addition he added about two months ago, was obviously Adam. Graceful and observant, he looked past Ronan’s front to peer up straight at his core, standing so close to Ronan’s secrets but ignoring it in favor of what Ronan really was.

 “It’s me,” Ronan answered Adam’s question simply. “You’re there too.”

Adam hummed. His fingers were distracting. The way his collarbones peeked out from what Ronan knew was an old shirt of his that was left at St. Agnes was distracting. Everything about Adam Parrish was distracting and Ronan was no stranger to that fact, and no exception to that rule.

“What are you doing?” Ronan asked, eyes flickering to the way Adam’s tongue darted out to lick at chapped lips.  He couldn’t remember when his eyes left the parchment on the desk, but it had. Adam’s fingers twitched in his palm, so he clasped at it and pulled Adam closer.

Adam smiled. “Holding your hand, obviously. What are _you_ doing?”

Ronan was kissing him, obviously.

* * *

 

While music was a continuously practiced obsession, it was not Ronan’s first. Music seemed to be such a perfect obsession for him, to the naked eye. It was impulsive and wild, flowing and haunting, every little aspect that Ronan would appear to be without the self-deprecation. He didn’t mind being associated with music. It was more flattering than his first obsession.

As a child and growing up, Ronan Lynch loved drawing.

Drawing what he loved, reading what he was interested in, and playing pretend; those were the things that he used to escape himself. They made him happy, they never got old, and that was exactly the problem.

See, Niall Lynch loved three things, and each thing was a major component of a Lynch’s life: cars, sports where you could hit things, and music.

Declan took to liking cars far better than his younger brothers. He learned to box, shoved off tennis (and baseball and football and soccer), gave his only guitar to Ronan, and bought his own car with his own earned money as soon as he began university.

Matthew excelled in music and boxing. He loved composing, singing, playing instruments, and punching people who have been assholes enough to deserve it, Ronan knew. After all, his first bloody nose had come from soft, blond Matthew Lynch.

Ergo, Ronan was the odd Lynch out. He had no interest in anything Niall Lynch gifted to his sons. 

He liked cars just fine, which wasn’t good enough because Niall had been looking for something more… obsessive from his middle child.  Ronan did his sports all willy-nilly too, because he really didn’t care enough to pour his aggression out with violence. Niall ultimately gave up once Ronan started skipping training for both tennis and boxing.  Ronan used music as a punching bag for emotions he didn’t like to feel, which he thought satiated enough of Niall’s expectations. Honing his musical skills were kind of neat when he was genuinely curious about it.

Most importantly, it was a fucking relief. Being passionate about his interest in music meant not being forced into yet another Lynch aspect and disappointing his father if he didn’t like it.

And then Declan told him that he was going to be the one inheriting the Lyric, and it inevitably made music his job.

Looking at it from this standpoint, Niall Lynch had the track record of trying to get his sons (particularly his middle son) into things he could relate to and liked (particularly things that Ronan couldn’t bring to be a hundred percent about). It was like trying to get Ronan interested in the fun and whimsical world of mathematics.

Namely, it was a lost fucking cause.

“He’s just trying to get you to stop being such a pansy,” Declan had sneered at him, once when they were children. It was what caused the first of many sibling squabbles.

Ronan didn’t have the heart to say it, or even think it, but maybe Declan was right.

Now that he was dating Adam, would Niall accept the fact that Ronan was gay?

Ronan hated thinking of hypothetical questions.

 

He found his father, minutes after he and Adam parted from his room. Niall’s head was stuck inside one of the chicken coops they had around the Barns, a five-minute walk from the house.

Contrary to Ronan’s doom and gloom, the afternoon sky was actually pleasant. There was a gentle breeze that carried through the winter chill that was countered by the sun high in the sky. The hens ran around his feet as he walked towards the coop, filling his nose with the stench of chicken shit. He would have winced if he hadn’t grown used to it.

“I already checked there,” Ronan called out, dodging stray chicks as they ran after their respective hens.

Niall startled, causing a loud _thud_ as he ducked out of the coop.

“Ronan,” he hissed, though it sounded as if he wanted to say _shit_ and swapped it out with _Ronan_ at the last second. Ronan tried not to grin at the way he rubbed at the back of his head. “You checked up on the farm while we were gone? We have help for that.”

Ronan shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets, trying to distract himself from how the winter chill ran up his arms. “It was something to do.”

Niall walked away from the coop, dusting off straws of hay and cobwebs from his hair. “So,” he started with a huff, “time for lunch?”

 “No.” He could feel his throat tighten up again, but he’d already done this once, so he could do it again. “Actually, can I talk to you about something?”

Niall fished his lighter out of his pocket, shaking a stick out in one fell swoop. It was a practiced move, Ronan thought. It had to be, even though he’d never seen his father touch a stick of cigarette before the age of fifteen. Niall made a sound of assent, covering the tip of his cigarette as he lit it up.

Ronan tried to breathe most of the fresh air that he could as the cherry of his father’s cigarette began burning. Taking two steps away from his father, he looked out at a spot beyond his father’s left ear and said, “I’m gay and I’m dating Adam.”

His father’s shoulders drooped, but he didn’t dare look away from the spot, unsure of whether or not he could stomach his father’s vulnerable emotions. Every nerve in Ronan’s body buzzed as his father took another drag from the cigarette and stayed silent.

Silences were special to Ronan the way music was. When he was a kid, he used to think of it as nature’s way of talking to him. If he stopped to listen, he would hear the distant ruffling of leaves as a breeze blew past, the animals in their barns and coops. From then until now, Ronan associated that particular kind of silence with home.

This kind of silence was his least favorite. It wasn’t so much a silence as it was the lack of sound. Speechlessness or contemplation, it didn’t matter. It made him feel like he was standing in the middle of a bridge on the verge of collapsing. He was about ready to jump at whatever response his father gave him.

“Well?” Ronan inquired impatiently, wishing he didn’t have to. His father could have fucked up Ronan’s post-make-out high with a few choice words, but it was better than _this_. “Say something,” he added.

Niall held his joint between two fingers, thumb fumbling with the filter as one would fidget with their fingers when nervous. He wasn’t looking at Ronan when he responded with, “What _should_ I say? Thanks for letting me know? Seems cliché.”

He took another drag, doing as Ronan had just done, looking somewhere past Ronan’s face. “… You and I aren’t a wordy kind of people, kid. We like the people who get us even though we don’t open our mouths. We might be giants but our thoughts are bigger. I just never thought…”

“That it’d be Adam who got me?”

Niall exhaled slowly, smoke flowing out of his mouth. It was such a dragon-like action that Ronan was momentarily distracted. “That it would be a boy who got you, _period_. Girls are pretty fucking smart, you know. But hey, Adam’s a genius too.” He grinned, directing his line of sight towards Ronan’s eyes. “I commend you for picking a good one, Ronan.”

Ronan laughed at that, and it was both self-deprecating and relieved. “Believe it or not, it’s kind of the other way around. But, thanks, Dad.”

Niall started walking away, towards the house after a few moments of silence. Ronan appreciated that, that they didn’t have to awkwardly fumble around the discussion just because they had to was a relief to him. Filled with relief, he shadowed his father’s footsteps across the hills.

“For what it’s worth, kid,” Niall called out from over his shoulder. “People like us and Adam? We don’t choose the wrong kind of people.”

Ronan remembered the chill of Christmas morning, Adam pressed up against him, and the words _I wouldn’t be here without you, Ronan,_ and agreed, more or less.

* * *

 

They’re resting at Adam’s place on a day-off, just lying on the mattress bathed in silence, when Ronan takes a moment to think.

Niall had taken charge of the Lyric for Ronan for the rest of the day, winking their way as they exited the building. Ronan didn’t want to think about whatever his father thought he and Adam would do, so he let it go easily. Adam didn’t fight either, stepping away from the piano. He decided that it was okay to skip his odd jobs for the weekend in order to just spend an entire day with Ronan. Ronan barely resisted the urge to suggest that they do his odd jobs together, remembering that Adam needed rest just as much as he needed money.

That, and, well...

Ronan did kind of miss spending time alone with him. Sure, they spent their time together, but it was usually around work. Adam worked three jobs, did odd jobs on the side for food or money, and even helped Ronan around at the Lyric. The moments they had for themselves were fleeting as the days went on.

Taking a deep breath, Ronan kept his eyes on the sloped ceiling as he idly combed his fingers through Adam’s hair. He was half-sure Adam fell asleep on him two minutes into this routine. Ronan could feel his other arm falling asleep from where Adam laid on it.

His thoughts drifted back to agitated words bouncing around the walls of his room, voices rising, pillows thrown around. Ronan’s thoughts snagged on a single memory, of the feeling of warmth dripping down his lips, coating his fists, the sudden thought of the only gun in the house inside his parents’ bedside drawer.

Ronan sighed.

“That was heavy,” Adam muttered. His accent, heavy as it was, slipped out unconsciously, stretching out vowels. It made him sound like he’d just woken up.

Ronan squirmed, twisting to look at him. The buzzing presence of the memory in his head faded into the background as he focused on the warmth of Adam in his arms. Voice hoarse with disuse, Ronan replied, “Thought you were asleep.”

Adam hummed, turning so that he was half-on Ronan, his chin laying on the other’s chest. Ronan lifted his hips so that Adam could wrap his arms around him from beneath. The proximity never stopped being intoxicating so he cherished it. Adam’s eyes never stopped being heart-stoppingly beautiful like the rest of him, so Ronan stared directly into them. Possibly unknowing of what effect he had, Adam quipped, “Was thinking ‘bout it. What’s bothering you?”

It was kind of a loaded question, really. Ronan had tons of shit bothering him. If Adam were any other person, Ronan would have gone for a half-truth easier to spout than what really did end up bothering him. But this wasn’t just any other person. This was Adam, and Ronan would probably give him the world if he asked.

“Declan’s been giving me shit for wanting to drop out,” Ronan confessed, his fingers making its way back into Adam’s hair. He could feel his heart beating out of his chest; he could feel the thoughts buzzing in his head again, wanting to drown him out. When he looked, his fingers were shaking.

Adam valued education because it was his key out of poverty or something. Ronan didn’t claim to understand every single one of his motives, but he knew that Adam held education in high regard. This problem of Ronan’s could possibly make or break what they had now, but Ronan stood his ground despite the fear.

Adam pulled his hand out from beneath them and drew circles on Ronan’s chest. Ronan looked for a change in expression, a blank look of calculation in Adam’s eyes, and came out empty-handed. “What did he say, exactly?” Adam asked, voice nothing but curious and concerned.

Ronan measured his breathing so that he wouldn’t disturb Adam’s perch on his chest. He was sure Adam didn’t notice his relief coming off in waves.

After a few moments of mulling over what really went down, Ronan told the tale of the event.

Most fights with Declan started in the Lyric, but this one started in his room.

Ronan had told his parents of these thoughts the day after New Year’s, the moment Matthew went to bed, he sat his parents down in the living room and sat on the carpet, staring up at them. He took the plunge and took Adam’s logical route: by saying something he would have laughed at if he didn’t take the situation seriously.

“I can stay here, you know. Fix stuff in the farm, help with groceries. All that shit.” Ronan scratched at the back of his head, trying to ignore the nervous chill crawling up his arms, making his fingers shake. Aurora listened to him attentively, while Niall stared at the floor.

Swallowing to keep his throat from drying up, Ronan continued, “Hell, I’d even do full-time on the Lyric, do odd jobs here and there. Please. It’s a complete waste of tuition money that… that you could probably use to help Matthew or make instruments, or even pay for help around the farm or something. It’s just… not for me.”

The only part of it that didn’t leave a sour taste in his mouth was the last part. School really wasn’t for him at the moment, or any other moment. He could learn, of course he could, but only at his own pace.

“Your father and I will talk about it,” Aurora told him. Niall’s silence spoke volumes in this conversation, and it set Ronan on edge the way it set him on edge the day he came out.

It seemed like they found his reasons somewhat questionable, but Ronan was Niall’s son, and they both knew that a Lynch with his mindset was a Lynch who would go through with what he wanted done because it was the only choice. Or at least he hoped it seemed that way. Less uncertainty, more resignation.

Before retreating for the night, she added, “Just see if it can hold your interest for a few more weeks, okay?”

Seeing that he had no choice but to wait ‘til they reached a decision, Ronan agreed.

Declan, in his inherent ability to step into all things and decisions Ronan Lynch, found out about it somehow. Probably from Matthew, probably from Aurora herself, bonus points if it was actually Niall that ratted out. Ronan didn’t care much that they told, but Declan was still a fucking prick about it, which he hated.

It happened just that Sunday morning, before Declan returned to DC after Mass and family lunch at home. Ronan was busy sketching, and Declan was busy fuming about the decisions Ronan made for his own life. Just another Sunday morning.

“Are you that fucked in the head?” Declan practically shrieked the moment he closed the door behind him. His loss in composure kind of rendered the whole professional-looking suit useless, but Ronan bit his tongue, finding the shrieking annoying enough to put up with as it is. He put his sketchpad over his pulled-up knees and kept sketching as Declan raged on.

“You can’t just drop school just because you don’t feel like it, you spoiled dickhead.” On the contrary, Ronan can and fucking will, if or when his parents decided that he was right.

“It’s just two more years, Ronan, it’s not that fucking hard.” Easy for him to say, Mr. Valedictorian of his batch. It wasn’t that Ronan thought school was hard, it was that every rotting moment he spent inside a classroom felt like he was being physically strangled. The only solace he had was probably seeing his friends on a near-daily basis. Well, his friends and _Adam_.

“You’ll rot in this goddamn farm for the rest of your life if you do this.”

Ronan froze at that. He took his deep breaths, steadily ignored the itch for guitar strings against his fingers or a Declan-shaped face colliding with his fist and sat properly so that he could calmly set his things down on his bed.

He looked his brother straight in the eye and said, “Just because you don’t see this place as home doesn’t mean that I don’t, you insensitive prick, you grew up here too. Get your head out of your own fucking ass the next time you decide to spout shit, why don’t you. It’ll do your political career wonders. Also, the world doesn’t revolve around capitalism and high education, by the way. I went through enough schooling to get that much, did you?”

Declan bristled at this, looking red in the face. It looked like he wanted to shout but was resisting the urge to. Ronan knew this was a closed conversation the moment it started, because two Lynches were set on a mindset where neither was willing to be swayed to change opinions.

So Declan decided to play dirty.

“So you’ll just fucking stay here? And when your boyfriend graduates, he’s going to leave your hick ass here while he goes on through college, is that it?” Declan sneered, taking two steps into the room, so obviously trying to get a rise out of Ronan out of embarrassment.

Ronan’s hand dropped from Adam’s hair as he pushed up onto his elbows, looking a bit hurt. “I would _never_ leave you,” he said. “That’s—I’ve changed my mind on that before we even started being a thing.”

Ronan huffed, not intending for it to come off as self-deprecating, but the smirk on his face was hollow. “We’re both lying if we tell each other we’re not scared shitless of getting left behind.”

Adam bit his lip, clearly anxious to stop Ronan from saying these awful things, and Ronan immediately wanted to take his words back. “I’ll come back to you, you know. You matter to me.”

Ronan could feel his breath leave his lungs. This moment felt like such a dream that he was afraid that doing anything about it would make it go away. He said, “You too, Adam. You matter to me too.” _A lot, actually. Too much, sometimes. Whenever you say shit like that, it makes me feel like I can’t die._

Adam leaned down to drop a kiss to his jaw and went back to his position before. “What are you thinking about?”

Ronan blinked, felt Adam’s hair in his fingers and wondered how it ended up there. “It’s—nothing. Anyway, that wasn’t really the only thing that had me down. It was just Declan in general, you know how it goes.”

Adam’s face went through five different expressions at once, and it took Ronan a moment to figure out that one of them was actually relief. With his curious expression back, he asked, “What about him?”

Ronan averted his eyes at that. “It’s… complicated. Just… it’s hard for me to understand where I went wrong or why he got this mad at me in the first place. It’s not my fault that I’m Dad’s favorite and Matthew is Mom’s. It’s not my fault he left home for college and won’t fix his issues by just talking. He does a lot of that but not when it’s about himself. It’s fucking unfair.”

In the silence that followed after, he could feel the magnitude of his words press over him. Ronan suddenly felt like a dick for trying to make Adam say that he didn’t have to go back to the trailer park, and it made him realize just how much of a brave person Adam was. Saying something meant making it real, taking a thought-out concept and dragging it into the physical realm where anyone can hear. Forcing abstract concepts into a concrete thing was hard enough, but trying to force out conditioned thoughts was probably harder.

Ronan never told anyone about any of this before. He cursed softly to himself. “So this is what it feels like to tell someone your deepest, darkest secrets for the first time. You really had it tough, man.”

Adam laughed. “I’m not the one who came out to his parents.”

“I’m not the one with _your_ parents.”

Adam rolled his eyes at that, proceeding to nuzzle at Ronan’s stomach, presumably to hide the way he was blushing. It was pointless, seeing as Ronan could perfectly see the tips of his ears and how pink they were.

Ronan insisted, grin making its way to his lips as he struggled to take a better look at Adam’s blushing face, “No, I’m serious! It’s pretty fucking brave.”

“Sap,” Adam retorted into his shirt. Ronan could feel him smile against his stomach, and it would have made Ronan weak in the knees if they’d been standing.

“Does it count as flattery if it’s true?”

Instead of answering, Adam pushed away from him and leaned up to kiss him. Ronan couldn’t say he was disappointed with that response.

* * *

 

School started back up the following day and to say that he wasn’t tired the moment he woke up would be a lie.

“It’ll be fine,” Adam reassured from inside his bathroom. Ronan had driven him to and from Boyd’s already, and all they were waiting for was for Adam to get ready for school. “You’ve done this for, what, nine to ten years by now? Another few days ‘til your parents can decide isn’t gonna make a difference, is it?”

Ronan didn’t respond to that, choosing to fumble with his shoelaces instead. He knew he could do it and that he was probably just exaggerating, Adam seemed convinced that that was the case too, so he shouldn’t really complain.

“Ronan,” Adam called out. Ronan knew that voice. That voice meant that he was ignoring Adam’s point by staying silent. He pulled at his shoelaces until he couldn’t and twisted to look at the bathroom door. Adam’s hair was still damp from the quick shower he took, the required white dress shirt only half-buttoned.

When Adam raised a brow expectantly at him, Ronan sighed. “I know, okay, I’m just… really tired.” He laughed, the sound dripping with so much self-deprecation that he almost winced. He leaned back and rubbed a hand over his head. “It’s stupid. I’m rich, I hate education, and I still got the guts to say I’m tired. I’m starting to sound like Gansey at this point.”

Adam crossed the room and knelt in front of him. Ronan didn’t bother meeting his eyes, fearing that he’ll see this as what finally breaks them apart. Why couldn’t he just keep his mouth shut? Why would he bother to, when this relationship seemed like it could teeter off the edge of breaking up every time he risked laying himself out like this?

“Ronan, look at me.”

Ronan looked at him. It was hard not to, and it was hard to. Adam was so beautiful and simple and complex, contradictions upon contradictions. He fought so hard for independence and individuality, and he loved music more than Ronan himself could say he did. And here Ronan was, being a self-pitying ass.

Adam held his attention by grabbing him by the cheeks and looking him in the eyes. “Life isn’t a contest, Ronan. Just because I was abused and poor doesn’t mean I’m the bottom of the pit, and that I’m some milestone you’ll have to get through to be the most pitiful person on earth. I’m struggling, you’re struggling, hell, even Gansey’s struggling.”

Ronan reached up to press his thumb against Adam’s pulse, feeling life between his fingers and seeing love in front of him.

Ronan didn’t know when he closed his eyes or when he leaned in to kiss Adam, but when he did open his eyes again, he could see the freckles sprinkled across Adam’s cheeks, could feel the way Adam’s lips still touched his as they took that one moment and locked themselves in it. In that one moment, nothing came before and after.

And in one fell swoop, the moment broke. “We’re going to be late for being early,” Ronan muttered against Adam’s lips. He could feel time restart as Adam grinned and laughed.

“Never reference SpongeBob before or after kissing me, you dorky asshole,” Adam scolded as he did up the rest of his buttons and turned to gather the rest of his things. Ronan watched him fondly.

“That was a SpongeBob reference?” He joked. “I wouldn’t have guessed. You’re really smart.”

“Fuck off. Come on.”

On the way out of the apartment, he may have almost tripped over untied shoelaces but Adam didn’t have to know that.

* * *

 

Ronan’s memories of school weren’t the greatest.

He always skipped school gatherings that weren’t compulsory, trapped himself in the library whenever possible, and the people who chose to be friends with him always found someone more interesting than him. He’d grown to accept that he would never _be_ the more interesting person, that he was always the last person to get picked for team games. Being tallest silent kid in his class definitely didn’t help him any.

In middle school, a neurotic blabbermouth who went by Joey took interest in him because he was the only one who kept asking questions after a long rant. Ronan didn’t really care about the break in routine, already expecting Joey to leave him alone within a week. But, in a surprising turn of events, he didn’t.

See, Joey had a cutting problem, and Ronan had been the only person he told. Ronan wasn’t the most concerned person about it, but his mother raised him to look out for other people’s health, and the church always told him to help those who are sick and needy. So, Ronan made Joey promise to stop cutting.

Joey lied.

Ronan hadn’t seen or heard of him after middle school. The lack of phone calls or house visits stung, but if Ronan expected Joey to leave within a week of meeting him then he would expect him to leave after two years of being attached to the hip.

In seventh grade, Ronan had his hopes up for a few changes. Nothing came. Life went on.

In eighth grade, Matthew was in seventh grade, and together,  they met Gansey and Noah. Ronan stubbornly went through the motions of life before Gansey and Noah came, just as he had after Joey, and tried not to get his hopes up too high this time. But he wasn’t the kind of person who could readily resist the gravitational pull of Gansey’s presence. As days went on, they became a normal occurrence. Laughter came easier, and by the end of eighth grade, Gansey met a Blue Sargent from Mountain View High, Noah came out of the closet, Matthew joined the Aglionby soccer team, and Ronan still expected everyone to leave him.

In ninth grade, Ronan joined the Aglionby tennis team. He didn’t like the people there, and didn’t even care about the sport, but it was something to do for himself when his friends had lives outside of him.

It was all fine until prom. Gansey was taking Blue, and Noah wanted a wingman so he brought Ronan.

Prom wasn’t anything special, in Ronan’s honest opinion. It was frivolous, balloons and lights everywhere, shitty pop music playing one track at a time. The catering wasn’t too bad, but the attendees were awful.

Actually, prom felt pretty fucking lonely.

Noah kept going off who knew where, not even taking Ronan with him. Gansey and Blue couldn’t stop whispering into each other’s ears and laughing in their little corner. No one took Ronan for a dance, and the anticipation and dread ready in his stomach on the occasion someone did made the whole event stretch out into a huge disappointment. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, having the time of their lives, feeling comfortable in their dresses and suits, joking over the music. Everyone save for Ronan.

Ronan couldn’t have felt more isolated.

If he thought he could forget that his friends really didn’t need him, life decided to just put it out there that they didn’t, no matter what he fucking did.

School and Ronan had many disagreements aside from the academic kind. The only thing that kept him afloat was music and books, and, by the end of the ninth grade, meeting Adam.

When he found out that Adam didn’t think he had an impact in Ronan’s life yet, Ronan couldn’t help but get gushy and disagree. After all, Adam was the first person Ronan approached, the first person he pulled any kind of effort on in a long-ass time. Whenever he saw Adam walking past the Lyric, looking curious and holding himself back, something in Ronan felt like he owed it to him to approach.

He didn’t think it would end up like this. Adam was one of the few people he was genuinely afraid of losing, and the Monday Ronan called in sick from school, trying to talk himself down from self-destructive urges, was the most terrifying day in his life.

Then, Adam came back to him.

It was such a relief, and Ronan couldn’t think of anything more reassuring than hearing the words “I’m not mad at you” coming out of Adam’s mouth. Just the mere concept of Adam _coming back_ was baffling, and it took him a few days to think.

The concept opened up a whole can of worms inside Ronan’s head, though he never really thought much about it until...

 

“What are you thinking about?” Adam muttered over at him when Whelk wasn’t looking.

Ronan snapped back to reality. They were both in Latin, with Gansey turning back occasionally to check in on the conversation he was overhearing by sheer proximity. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been staring at Adam, and he didn’t know what kind of face he had on, but he sure as hell hoped no one else but Adam noticed.

“Huh?”

Adam glanced down at his notes as Whelk looked out at the class. When Whelk squinted at his laptop screen, Adam whispered, “You were zoning out. What were you thinking about, just now?”

“The future,” Ronan replied, grabbing his pen to doodle on his notes and pretend to be listening to Whelk teaching material so basic to him, he could almost cry with boredom.

He was just beginning to add details on the buck looking out by the margins when he noticed Adam twirling his pen in the corner of his eyes. He paused and withdrew his pen from the page, eyes transfixed at the smooth motion.

In this light, he could see the faint outline of nerves underneath copper skin, each knuckle shadowed against the light coming in from the windows. Glancing back at his paper, Ronan started a new sketch on the upper right corner of his notes.

By the end of Latin, Ronan had a sketch of Adam’s hands, absolutely nothing about declensions, and a few plans for what he and Adam could do that weekend.

* * *

 

Adam and Noah got the cars started as Ronan and Gansey waited for Blue to finish changing by the back of Nino's. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and stared up at the light-polluted skies above Henrietta town proper.

He tried to feel small but felt big enough to swallow the world in a yawn. His gaze dropped to see Gansey fidgeting with his phone, a small smile on his face as he typed something down.

“That Henry?” Ronan asked.

Gansey paused to look at Ronan, still grinning. “Yes, it’s Henry.”

Silence. A breeze blew by, Ronan could hear clattering plates and running water and country music. There was a faint undercurrent of crickets that had Ronan feeling at ease with this lull in conversation.

He took a deep breath, looked back up at the sky and asked, “Are you ever afraid Sargent’ll leave you for someone better?”

Again, Gansey paused, but Ronan didn’t look to see how he reacted. Some things were better left untouched, especially Gansey’s insecurities, if there ever were. He wanted to give Gansey that security.

“Not really,” Gansey answered, his voice almost a whisper. It made his answer all the more serious, and it made Ronan all the restless. “You know, sometimes I think about it, but she always reminded me when we started dating that if I ever thought about us like some kind of…

“Oh, how did she put it…? If I ever thought about myself as just someone who could be passed off like a ball if I didn’t bounce, then this really wasn’t going to work.”

Ronan finally looked at Gansey. There was always that thing with Gansey, that thing where you couldn’t help but look at him when he spoke, or even notice him when he was in the room.

Gansey continued, playing with the lock button on his phone as he spoke, “I didn’t really get it for a few days but it made sense. Remember when I was just courting her and I tried to give her gifts?”

Ronan remembered. There wasn’t a day that passed in those months when Gansey didn’t wonder out loud what Blue would want to get.

“I kept trying to give her something only I could get her and she said that that wasn’t how this was going to work. Basically, if I kept thinking of our relationship as something that hinges on my function of being a providing boyfriend, then we weren’t going to last a year. All she needed from me was trust, faith, and understanding. You know, love.”

Ronan thought over those words, and continued to think them over as Blue finally walked out of Nino’s smelling like the kitchen and a hint of tea leaves.

He wondered if Adam thought of it that way, and hoped that he did.

* * *

 

The following Sunday was the weirdest Sunday in Ronan’s life, and Ronan’s had weird Sundays before.

It wasn’t like the weekend the Lynches spent in Europe, when he laid his eyes on the charcoal pieces on the street and got to hold a stick of charcoal when the artist was endeared with his fascination. It wasn’t like the Sunday Joey came over to play video games with him.

It wasn’t even as weird as the Sunday he and Adam decided to hide in the backseat of the Pig as Gansey talked _at_ his phone, the other two wondering if Gansey would notice that he’d left them behind inside the car when they got to Monmouth.

When Ronan stepped into St. Agnes that Sunday, Declan pulled him in for a one-armed hug, and went on to greet the others.

And _that_ freaked him the fuck out.

Declan was not a hugging kind of person. In fact, Ronan had never felt Declan’s arms around him in an affectionate way since the day Declan stepped into third grade, so saying that getting a hug from his older brother was weird was a fucking understatement.

It was like… It was like getting mad at Matthew or hating his mother. It was illogical and odd and should not have happened ever.

What did _Ashley_ feed Declan for breakfast? Better yet, and what Ronan actually wanted to know, who was this person and what did he do to Declan?

The oddness of it sunk in with him all throughout the Mass, and he was extremely distracted for the most of it.

The only way he could veer off from the subject was when he sang along to the hymns and songs. The organ-playing this weekend was good, he noted. The flow of the songs sounded more natural. Other weekends, the choir had amateurs playing the keys for exposure, but this one was actually pretty good.

As he lined up with his family to receive the Host, the instrumentals lulled into background noise as the choir members ran off to get their share for communion. All, except the pianist. As he trotted up behind Aurora, he could make out the faint plinking of keys in the background, a hesitant rendition of _Fur Elise_.

 

After Mass, Ronan told Niall to go on ahead, and that he’d be there for dinner. It was a standing decision to keep Adam’s home life a secret to his parents, so Niall didn’t really know that Ronan was staying behind for Adam.

Ronan had plans with Adam until three and he was going through with it no matter what. He pushed past churchgoers towards the office and ran up to the second floor to twist at Adam’s door knob. It caught midway. Frowning, Ronan turned it the other way.

Nothing.

It was locked.

Only a little disappointed, Ronan made his way back down. The place slowly trickled into silence as people pushed out of the doors to the parking lot. As he walked down the middle aisle, he spotted two silhouettes up at the choir area. He recognized one shapeless form as Mrs. Ramirez. The other was hidden behind the organ.

Maybe Mrs. Ramirez knew where Adam went.

He crept up towards the choir area, keeping to the right as he let the choir members walk out first, before making his way up the stairwell.

“And just to remind you…”

He couldn’t hear the end of the sentence as his steps caused floorboards to squeak.

“Yes, ma’am.” came an answer.

Ronan looked at who Mrs. Ramirez was talking to.

Adam sat by the organ, looking so at home in front of the keys as he spoke to his landlady that it felt like he’d been doing it all his life. Ronan couldn’t believe it.

“Adam?”

Both people turned to look at him.

“Mr. Lynch,” Mrs. Ramirez called out just as Adam said, “Hi, Ronan.”

Ronan walked up to them. Mrs. Ramirez turned to tell Adam something before walking off. Ronan didn’t bother greeting her, making his way towards the seat next to Adam.

“I didn’t know you were in the choir,” he said, sitting down.

Adam shrugged, “I just started today.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

Adam wrung his hands together, looking down at the keys in front of him. “I had this deal with Mrs. Ramirez… about not telling strangers who lived in the church attic. I told her I’d play for the choir in exchange.”

They sat there in silence for a second, comfortable inside the church, sitting next to each other beside a statue of the Virgin Mary.

“So, Declan was weird to me today,” Ronan blurted out. He was sure that Adam had been using organ-playing as a distraction from thinking about Mrs. Ramirez accidentally talking to Robert and Jodie Parrish. This required distraction. He continued, “He _hugged_ me. What the fuck, right?”

Adam laughed, “We’re in a church, should you be cursing? We’re literally sitting right next to the mother of God.”

Ronan rolled his eyes, “You’re such a stereotypical Christian, Parrish. It’s not like I blasphemed. I’m just saying, Declan fucking hugged me earlier.”

Adam shrugged again, this time bemused by his profane awe. “I mean, you’re brothers. Why shouldn’t he hug you? He only comes home on Sundays.”

Ronan glanced at Adam and squinted at the way Adam kept on wringing his fingers.

“You got involved, didn’t you.”

Adam made a noncommittal sound from the back of his throat. “Nothing too serious. I just… explained some things in a way he could understand and gave him a week to brew it over.”

“And when was this?”

“Last Monday night. Borrowed the phone in Mrs. Ramirez’ office.”

They were silent again, and Ronan couldn’t help but lean his head on Adam’s shoulder. Adam stopped wringing his fingers together, laying a hand on Ronan’s knee.

In a soft voice, Adam broke the silence. “Hey, Ronan?”

Ronan nuzzled at Adam’s shoulder to let him know he was listening.

“You know how we said we’d deal with our own shit before we dealt with each other’s?”

This struck a chord inside Ronan. Was Adam apologizing for partially repairing Ronan’s relationship with his older brother? Ronan didn’t ask. Instead he shrugged, which was as much of a nod as Adam was going to get.

Adam slid his hand from Ronan’s knee and laced their fingers together. Ronan watched this with distracted interest, so much that he almost didn’t hear the next words Adam said.

“I don’t have to go back.”

Ronan pulled away from Adam’s shoulder and leaned back in for a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did anyone expect this to be a ronan chapter? haha (pls tho was i predictable af)
> 
> this is pretty long, and kind of scattered around, but i hope it's satisfying enough! i apologize to those who were expecting a bigger outcome, like, an epilogue with Ronan still ending up punching Robert. this story really did start out plotless.
> 
> to those who were satisfied, thank you! this fic is kind of my heart and soul now, because it has concepts abt depression and anxiety that i've had issues with in real life. thank you to those commenters and subscribers, and all those people that reblogged the tumblr post. i love y'all!
> 
> if there are any typos or reactions or questions, the comment section is below. if you have prompts, head on over to my [ask box](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/ask) and i'll try to get to them as fast as i could >.
> 
> [the rebloggable post would be here](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com/post/150028548945) and spread the word if you want?


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